



















Glass 


Book 'G 44! o5 R 

GoipghtN" 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT'. 

» 










J ■ i 


.4 


. 'i 





V * . T5r-> V 


> 

ES^: 




-t.*- 


„ • ^ , jy ' .- ^ 

it ■ ■ '.- • : ■- ,-: 


^VS.. . • '..'^’ 1 * ^ 

4 ^ Vv>^ 

^ V; .a 





*IW' 




' » 


‘*V’ 


ri-'. •- - 





^ j 


'P .; • ■ -', 

^ V-'. ;,,:v 

- .- ' ' "^• - -■ -i'. 


*• 'r*!^ 

-‘:''l-.0.x^';'‘0^ 



^ ^ ^ ^ 


% 

- ■ *-■' # -•■• ,:- 

't!'-x '*■■ - '' '• V* -"V -^‘1 


• X. 




.iC*> 






ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE : 


IDYLL OF ODE OWN TIMES. 


TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN 

OP 

EOBEKT GISEKE, 

AUTHOR OP THE ROMANCE “mODERNE TITANEN.” 


COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. 


PHILADELPHIA 

.AEEY AND M’MILLAN, 

SUCCESSORS TO A. HART. 

1854 . 


P 




Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 
PARRY AND M’MILLAN, 

in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States, 
in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



PniLADELPHIA: 

T. K. AND P. a. COLLINS, PRINTERS. 


CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

The First Sight 

• 

CHAPTER II. 

5 

Ascension Eve . 

CHAPTER III. 

. 21 

Forget Me Not . 

CHAPTER IV. 

. 48 

A Stone House . 

CHAPTER V. 

. 75 

An Honest Ghost 

CHAPTER VI. 

. 98 

Fairy Life 

CHAPTER VII. 

. 123 


Original Sin 


. 144, 


IV 


CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PAGE 

Domestic Peace 

CHAPTER IX. 

. 156 

People or the World . . . 

CHAPTER X. 

. 171 

Regeneration . 

CHAPTER XI. 

. 189 


Peace 


209 


PREFACE. 


The name of Giseke, although but recently known 
even in Germany, occupies already a distinguished 
position. His contributions to periodical and journal 
literature have been various and frequent; but the 
Pfarr Rdsclien, which our title of Rose of the Parson- 
age but feebly translates, is the second of his novels. 
Its predecessor, upon which his reputation as a novelist 
among his own countrymen was founded, is the Moderne 
Titanen; and the third and last of his novels has been 
but recently, if indeed it be yet issued from the press. 
The German writers as a class, whether it be from a 
talent peculiar to themselves, or from the great rich- 
ness of their language, and the ease with which it adapts 
itself to the largest exactions of descriptive prose, have 
usually excelled as word painters, and possessed in rare 
degree the power of presenting in a few short sentences 
a scene whose minute details are themselves outlined in 
the constituent elements of the words that represent it. 
Their writings, in general, deal far less with periphra- 
sis and diffuse illustration, than those of their English, 
French, and Italian rivals ; and the admiring reader 
will often find locked up in a single one of those expan- 
sive words, that are at once the charm and the wealth 
of their language, ideas, whose fulness is but scantily 


VI 


PREFACE. 


revealed by us, in a prolix, perchance an involved 
phrase. The advantage to be derived by the Novel, 
from this property of their language alone, will readily 
be perceived ; and were it not balanced by some defects 
equally forcible, and as it would seem just as inherent 
in the German language, or at least in the German 
mind, the first rank in fiction would have been occupied 
by their writers in that department, as much with the 
concurrence of the world of letters, as that in politics, 
metaphysics, classical or theological criticism, history, 
and the sciences has been, by those distinguished Ger- 
mans whose reputation and whose learning are the pro- 
perty of man. There is, however, this balance, and it 
is made up of an over tendency to be minute and pre- 
cise, a morbid proclivity to unhealthy sentimentality; a 
grossness of taste, and a boldness almost irreverent, in 
approaching those sacred subjects which the heart in 
its purer state guards within its inmost recesses, and 
respectfully beholds, but presumes not to touch. All 
these are characteristics that can meet with little sym- 
pathy from an American reader, whose oscillations 
from the centre of propriety in each of these ranges, 
however often they may be noticed upon the opposite, 
will seldom be upon the same side, with a German’s. 
With such faults as these; an appetency for the grand, 
the ' far-reaching, the bombastic; a boundless respect 
for matter-of-fact ; a timid scrupulousness in proprie- 
ties of every sort — dress, language, sentiment, or man- 
ner — and a dread of approaching the fountain of truth 
with other than dumb lips and downcast eyes, can of 
course have but little in common. With an American 
public, therefore, a German novelist might in vain hope 


PREFACE. 


vii 

to be popular. Tschokke and La Motte Fouque have 
been undoubtedly so, but the former less than the 
latter; for the world of Sylphs, Undines, and Goblins, 
while to many more attractive than one made up of 
beings of like passions with themselves, allows of a 
brighter pallet, and a bolder and less regulated stroke. 
Plants which never could draw life from this earth’s 
mould, and flowers whose colors are blended in a har- 
mony unlike that furnished by our less lavish nature, 
may wreath their interlacing folds around the fairy 
bower, with an uncriticized grace, and shed abroad an 
uncriticized fragrance. La Motte Fouqu4 provided 
such, and he is popular with us, it may be somewhat 
for this reason. Tschokke has been ^‘of the earth, 
earthy,” and possibly in consequence has been less 
generally liked. In the original Pfarr RbscTieUy most 
of the charms and graces of the German pen are found 
in rich abundance, and, it must be owned, that along- 
side are some but not many of its deformities. The 
scenery, the characters, the costumes, are alike simple, 
and true to nature. The moving springs are those 
human passions which are the same in the New World 
and the Old, and grow upon the Delaware as richly as 
on the Rhine. The incidents are less artificial than is 
usual with a German story, and have a dramatic activ- 
ity and force that would be hardly looked for from such 
quiet humble materials. It is a work with not a few 
touches that show a first-rate artist, and a man whose 
voice must reach the heart, since it comes freshly from 
it. The transforming effect of a great passion upon 
different types of character is admirably given; and the 
principal figure, as she leaves the reader, preserves the 


Till 


PREFACE. 


characteristics with which she greeted him, as a por- 
trait in age beckons hack to the portrait of youth, 
another and yet the same — is what life leaves most of 
us, when we strand : so it leaves our heroine. 

We have said thus much of the original Pfarr 
RoscTien ; of the translation there is but a word to say. 
It was undertaken under the impulse of those feelings 
which we trust will be its gift to every reader as the 
volume is put down. There are defects in it, undoubt- 
edly; and more, because the translator could not revise 
the proof-sheets. For these an apology is offered* to 
the author, whose work, while it could well endure, did 
little merit, slight or injustice. If the reader as he 
closes the book shall require one, there is one too for 
him. 


Philadelphia, August 30 , 1854 . 


THE 


ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE FIRST SIGHT. 

The Rhine ! The Rhine ! There, in yon lovely valley, 
lies the splendid stream. To the left, and below, a 
little town rests upon the margin of the water, with its 
pretty motley houses, and its high soaring spires ; still 
lower down stretch along the gray vine-clad hills 
crowned with a superb circle of wood. A little gothic 
church of red stone, perched upon a crag which juts out 
over the stream shuts in the valley on this side, while 
on the opposite bank, which is precipitous naked cliffs, 
green pasture-grounds, dusky woods, legendary moss- 
covered ruins, with their proud but shattered turrets 
rising in the misty distance, greet us reflected in the 
tremulous mirror of the stream. 

It is a magnificent spectacle. Here nature seems not 
the all-careful mother, who has created for man field, 
stream, and forest for his maintenance and toil; but 
presents herself in her fertile garments, an artist, the 
priestess of imperishable beauty. Yonder rural paths 
2 


6 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


look not like roads on which the traveller grows weary ; 
yon field, not like the soil whose clods the panting 
ploughman turns over ; yon rock, not like the hard 
naked antagonist, against "whom vintner’s mattock and 
wagoner’s wheel are broken. From this eminence all 
seems but form, color, fragrance ; not stern reality, hut 
all transformed into the reflection of its own existence. 
Nature’s work of art. The image of creation’s soul. 

Even the sturdy pedestrian, who humming a song, 
and smiling at the forest, out of whose shades he this 
instant steps forth, has stridden along wantonly as 
though the earth were scarce fit to be trodden by his 
light foot, who has passed no bird he has not roused, 
and has untiringly hied his slender grayhound among 
the bushes after the game ; even he was moved by the 
perspective at this point. His feet rooted themselves 
to the ground, his eye fastened upon the view. His 
clear brow became contemplative and gloomy. 

“ Here,” said he, after a lingering gaze before him, ‘‘I 
ought to stand unruffled. With my hand upon my 
heart, I should be able to say to this picture, here thou 
art domestic ; the soul, the peace, the poetry that speak 
in thee, live in this heart. I should be in harmony with 
nature; familiar to her enchantments as the child to its 
mother; were I happy, were I healthful. But now, 
this very nature makes me thoughtful, sad, effeminately 
sentimental. Ah ! all is not right with me; my soul is 
untuned, distorted, and perverse !” 

Werner was not wont to indulge long in reflections, 
at least in such as these. The afternoon was growing 
cooler, and a gentle breeze from the water invited him 
to a renewed stroll. He roused himself from his 


THE FIRST SIGHT. 


7 


melancholy, and sauntered along the skirt of the wood. 
Now he essayed a sonnet, now made a blow with his 
walking-stick at some twittering greenfinch, or amused 
himself over the gambols of his four-footed companion 
in chase of the sparrows. Excited by the fresh spring 
air, he had with the violence peculiar to all his emotions, 
transported himself into an extravagance of feeling, 
under whose influence he would have rallied the whole 
world to find a jest ; and here where the path bends 
around a corner of the wood, upon that open grass-plot, 
he is greeted by a sight that contrasts strangely with 
the Eata morgana which has hitherto enchanted him, 
and for that very reason brings him the change he longs 
for. 

Before him appeared beings apparently living and 
human ; but it must be confessed, in a condition as 
strange as attractive. Huge tent-cloths were extended, 
and garlands of different colors glistened in the sunlight; 
female forms, in fact youthful, and of singular beauty, 
were skipping about as if in the mazes of a shawl dance, 
waving their flags and stretching their tent-cloths, not, 
it is true, in the Bhine-nymphs’ national costume of 
gauze and mist, yet in a condition of toilet that could 
ill brook observation by a stranger. 

The spectacle was, in reality, somewhat alarming ; but 
its activity amused the humorist Werner, as the Ranger 
Gerhard’s wife, busied over her grand spring washing, 
appeared rolling about hither and thither. She was 
extremely sprightly, notwithstanding her corpulence, and 
when once warmed up, of an incredible activity. Labor 
was a pleasure to her, and for the very reason that she 
was sometimes solicitous about her health, the most 


8 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


fatiguing was the pleasantest. Her daughter, how- 
ever, who had as much mobility in her slender frame as 
in her active spirit, found toil agreeable, because it was 
so light. The pair had, on this account, devoted the 
couple of days which the Papa Ranger was employing 
in an inspection of his hunting district, to indulging 
their passion for labor and cleanliness ; their ‘‘ washing- 
devil,” as the old man called it; and had invited their 
next neighbors to assist at the washing. 

The Ranger’s wife was absolute mistress when the old 
fellow was absent, and particularly when she had once 
undertaken her great washing. And what a mistress 
she was ! That she went about in bare feet, that most 
exalted pleasure in her eyes, but one which she had to 
forego in the presence of her propriety-observing lord ; 
that she strode about without her gown, and in a red 
striped petticoat ; this did not trouble her in the least. 
Imperious spirit ! How masculine and sturdy was her 
step, what airs she took upon herself, how lordly she 
glanced around, how commandingly she beckoned here 
and there ; in everything like some general reviewing 
his troops. And what respect the forest-keepers and 
the girls bore to her ! Her words compelled obedience 
on the instant, and soundly did her ears feel it who 
heard not quite quickly enough. Still, such an occur- 
rence took place not unadvisedly, but with well-weighed 
forethought, and then it did its work. She knew, too, 
equally well how to praise those that did their duty. 
When with her own hands she helped up that heavy 
basket upon lazy Lorenz’s shoulder, and said warningly 
as she did it, ‘‘Aren’t you hurting yourself ?” I can 


THE FIRST SIGHT. 


9 


tell you it ran like fire through his veins, and he could 
work for the housewife after that night or day. 

The Ranger’s wife looked now like a general after an 
action which had proved a victory. Sun and wind had 
been propitious, the washing was all but dried, and her 
husband need stay away only one little hour more, to • 
find everything at home arranged in its proper place, 
and an immense, but necessary domestic evil, impercepti- 
bly surmounted. 

Inexorably stern as she was when labor demanded, 
she enjoyed diversion and sport when there was time 
for them just as keenly. The great washing was, it is 
true, commonly too weighty a state business for sport, 
but in such fine drying weather as this, her lively 
daughter Lenette, knew full well that mamma would wink 
at a joke. 

Some of the linen that had hung in the most favorable 
wind was already taken down, but it must be regularly 
stretched in all directions that it may not shrink and 
lose its shape. ' To this duty Lenette and her two 
female friends devoted themselves. 

Andrew, the inspector, was on a visit at the parson- 
age in view of to morrow’s festival, and had come hither 
to meet his cousin, the parson’s daughter. He, too, was 
compelled to share in this toil. The young girls were 
induced to present themselves before him in spite of 
their bare arms and feet, and their tucked up gowns, 
not merely by their long acquaintance with him, but 
still more by the absence of all timidity and respect, 
which they ever manifested in reference to him. He 
was the most amusing companion in the world ; jovial 
and gallant, and the best match, moreover, far or near ; 

2 * 


10 


T^IIE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


but be had spoiled it all with the girls, by continually 
boasting of it, and maintaining that he had only to 
stretch out his hand and every finger would secure its 
lady. Besides, he had once announced that his chief 
aim was not the girl, but her money. At eighteen, he 
was willing to take her with ten thousand crowns, for 
every five years more he asked five thousand additional, 
but at fifty years he turned back in his demands, and 
the lady was as dear at eighty, as at eighteen. ‘‘ The 
practical alone, no passion.” This was the phrase he 
always gave as his motto for such a view of life. 

To-day, especially, his strangely selected dress pro- 
voked extreme merriment in the girls. He had no 
sooner arrived than little Dora, the schoolmaster’s 
daughter, asked him if he did really carry the yard- 
stick — alluding to his little walking-cane, to show that 
he was more than a yard high. Lenette lamented that 
he had come too late ; and when he inquired why so ; 
replied, to wash his fine white pantaloons, which were 
dusty from the road. His cousin Martha had only 
courage to turn up her nose at his huge stiff shirt collars, 
the inconsiderate parricides as she called them.* Little 
Dora now began afresh, making merry over his eye-glass, 
and lamenting that he would be too proud now that he 
could look through that ; and when he denied it with 
gallantry, she required him in proof to condescend and 
keep them in the sheathing. 

The inspector had now drawn off his white kid gloves, 

* Allusion is here made to the well-known story of a young Ger- 
man, who on a return from a long absence, inconsiderately yielded to 
his filial affection, threw himself into his father’s arms, and immolated 
that worthy individual with the razor edge of his shirt collar. 


THE FIRST SIGHT. 


11 


Avhich were a great luxury when even the elegants were 
only wash leather, and Lenette extended to him a huge 
sheet. Laced up as he was, the toil was truly distress- 
ing, and the agony caused by the stretching sent the 
blood up into his head. They were at the second sheet, 
when, as Lenette was leaning away from him with the 
whole weight of her body, he let go his hold, and she 
fell down on her back upon the grass, while he called 
out to her tauntingly, her favorite maxim, “ no passion.” 

She was on her feet in an instant, and her fears sub- 
sided as she perceived that the sheet had covered her 
limbs. Still, she would have no more to do with the 
crafty wag. Andrew, meanwhile, was calling to his 
pretty blond pale-faced cousin, but it was not her habit 
to ' engage in such sport, though fond of jokes when 
merely a spectator. Veiling herself, therefore, as it 
were with her crossed arms, she stood in her usual atti- 
tude, looking on smiling and trancLuil from a distance. 

“ Take hold !” cried the brunette Dora, from whose 
little rosy pug-nose two or three pearl drops of perspi- 
ration were almost continually shining. Andrew ac- 
cordingly seized the sheet, and suddenly retreated so as 
to play the same game upon her; but the cunning little 
rogue was prepared for him. She stood firm on her 
feet, and then jerked her antagonist two or three steps 
backwards so briskly and unexpectedly, that, instead of 
letting her fall on her back, he stumbled forward him- 
self upon his knee, giving her a fine chance to return 
him his jest; “no passion,” she cried, “no tumbling 
over !” 

The young foresters and girls laughed so loudly at 
the dignified inspector as he rose, his pantaloons covered 


12 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


with green, and his toilet disordered, that the Ranger’s 
wife at last had to look round; and fearful that her 
linen might suffer by this fraudulent merriment, she no 
longer turned her hack so kindly on the group. They 
all now came together, determined to defer the sport 
till evening, and go earnestly to work. But it was im- 
possible. Some Koholt, some roguish killjoy, seemed to 
have dropped in among the company. 

Andrew made so comical a figure in his effort to con- 
ceal vexation under great gravity, that the girls could 
not resist teasing him with their tricks. Even quiet 
Martha, when Andrew with sorrowful air placed himself 
near her, could not avoid tickling him artfully and slyly, 
and without moving her arms, with a long grass-blade 
on his close-shaved neck. No sooner did he detect her, 
and make demonstrations of returning her frolic, than 
she drew back in evident timidity. Away she flew to 
examine along the line of clothes if all were dry, and it 
was she, after all, who was fated to occasion the greatest 
surprise and an universal alarm. 

She feels one piece of linen after another, hanging one 
higher, another lower, her white feet stepping about all 
the while with such conscious comfort on the tender spring 
grass. At last, she comes to a huge sheet that is hang- 
ing to the very ground, and she must raise it higher lest 
the ground soil it. She reaches after the clothes-pins 
that fasten it upon the line, but always lacks a little of 
reaching them. Rising then on tiptoe, and stepping 
about in all directions upon the grass in search of some 
higher point, she at last finds one from which she can 
take down the pins. Scarcely does she stand firm, how- 
ever, when a thrill runs over her limbs. The ground 


THE FIRST SIGHT. 


13 


beneath her is alive, and she feels her foot firmly clasped 
by a great claw. She tries to escape, but cannot free 
herself, and with a loud cry screams for help. Andrew, 
Lenette, and the rest hurry to her; in despair she her* 
self pulls down the sheet, when lo! on the other side of 
it lies stretched out upon the green grass; not a monster, 
not a snake, but our lively young pedestrian. He had 
been observing the graceful assemblage from behind the 
cool shady shelter of this cloth. 

He had been revolving injiis mind to which one of 
these graces he would have given the preference. 
Martha had not a beauty that struck the eye, her at- 
tractions were not conspicuous at a distance, nor upon 
the first sight. Indeed, Werner had only slightly noticed 
her, and she appeared somewhat delicate to him, who did 
not belong to those who find all suffering interesting. 
For him, the lively little nut-brown Dora had more at- 
traction with her flashing eyes, and her droll extrava- 
gances ; not exactly beautiful, he thought, but piquant. 
Yet her limited charms could not stand comparison for 
an instant with the vision of Lenette. 

Here were beauty and life united. That was a form, 
a countenance, a bearing whose graces must instantly 
strike every one, while with it all there was just as 
much coquetry as was needed to vindicate her natural 
gifts. Had the unperceived eavedropper been forced to 
allot the apple of Paris, Lenette would on the instant 
have received it, for she seemed to combine the charms 
of both the others, without sharing their defects. 

He was thus completely absorbed in contemplating 
her, when he saw a pair of the loveliest little alabaster 
white feet show themselves suddenly before this curtain, 


14 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


that concealed him like a lurking fowler. A man of his 
taste was a connoisseur in beautiful forms, and he had 
to confess that this was the most perfect foot he had 
ever beheld; so graceful in its outline, so harmonious 
in its proportions, at every step so pliant in all its joints, 
and soft as the very hand itself. What enhanced its 
charm too was, that the color of the little foot showed 
him, that it was not used to step so unprotected, and 
that it had let itself be surprised in this pastoral state 
of nature. Taking all together, the foot could not but 
belong to a cultivated nature; of this, Werner felt sure. 
He did not dare to raise himself from his place and 
frighten its lovely possessor by a disclosure of the point 
of view whence he had observed her, but from a sense 
of propriety remained still lying there. 

Judge of his transport, however, not only as the little 
feet tripped about before him, daintily picking out every 
spot as if to exhibit to him their graceful activity ; but 
when the white petticoat over them, as its owner reach- 
ing upwards balanced on tiptoe, lifted so high that he 
was in a manner compelled to extend his admiration of 
the lovely carnation and graceful form of the feet to 
the tender smooth-veined ankles. The more reason he 
had, however, for surprise and delight, so much the 
more had he to keep still as a mouse ; for it became all 
the more probable that this being, of whose delicate 
nature he had received such clear proof, would be 
frightened to death if he were to spring suddenly up. 

Werner’s sense of propriety yielded therefore only 
to necessity. His conscience was pure, and now that 
one little foot has set itself upon his hand, which wholly 
accidentally lies extended under the sheet, it was not 


THE FIRST SIGHT. 


15 


such a very great sin to press it, now that it was scarcely 
in his power to resist, and thus to convince himself 
whether figure, bust, and head, would fulfil what the foot 
seemed to promise. 

And truly, Martha’s delicately-formed figure, her tight, 
swelling bodice, her easy, graceful attitude, her wonder- 
fully beautiful head and timid mien, made at once a 
wonderful impression on him. He might now boast that, 
like other soothsayers by the hand, he had rightly pre- 
dicted by the foot. Yes, it was a strange, singular being 
that here met him, and her form exhibited the grace he 
admired in detail, diffused throughout the whole. He 
could perceive, from her color, that the same hue reached 
from the ankle, over neck and face, and her whole figure 
revealed the same delicacy, the same suppleness, as she 
writhed in every direction the foot his hand still impris- 
oned, and struggled to release it, and escape from him. 

But Werner, who looked up oddly enough from under 
the down-fallen sheet, with his polite and attractive smile, 
found this sport so agreeable, that he tried to carry it 
still further; and, as if imploring forgiveness for the 
fright, to cover the eloquent little foot with kisses. Her 
assembled friends had quickly recovered, at his appear- 
ance, from their first terror ; and their lively, smiling 
faces, seemed to promise him that the joke would be un- 
derstood. He thought that he was in his very element 
of piquant gallantry, when, in an instant, there burst 
upon his arrogance, the terrible countenance of a fearful 
guard of honor. 

Along with the rest, the Ranger’s wife had been drawn 
to the spot by Martha’s cry for help. No sooner did 
she perceive the prostrate linen, than her expression, 


16 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


hitlierto so triumphant, was transformed into that look 
that Lazy Lorenz so well knew. It was always her ex- 
pression when a storm was brewing that must soon burst. 
Stern as she could be when work was neglected, she was 
never more so than when she conceived a point of good 
manners to have been violated ; and her opinions on the 
proper deportment of men with young girls were so 
prudish, that even Andrew’s presence at the washing 
seemed an impertinence. This behavior of a stranger, 
however, towards the parson’s daughter, who had been 
confided to her care, was a most wanton crime. 

She was, moreover, sufiiciently enlightened by the 
strange forest culprit’s elegant dress, and bold, aristo- 
cratic mien, to pay no regard to him. Setting her arms 
a-kimbo, she first regarded him steadily, as if her mere 
look ought to restore order; but as Werner turned the 
same kindly, complacent smile on her as on the rest, she 
burst forth : “ In the Devil’s name, sir, what sort of 
manners is this?” at the same time, seizing Martha by 
the arms, and calling the servants to the knightly aid of 
endangered innocence. 

Werner was, it must be confessed, in a very painful 
situation ; for with this enraged modesty, no humble par- 
don! no gallant, jesting apology, no treaty was practi- 
cable. He saw himself exposed to all the perils of a 
detected poacher ; and like a man who cannot flee, was 
thinking over his last chance of escape, as an ungovern- 
able burst of manly laughter sounded out of a neighboring 
thicket, like a trumpet of deliverance. 

“ Hold up, old woman, hold up ! That ’s a noble 
fellow, a fine youngster.” So shouted a deep, good- 
natured, rumbling voice from the opposite side, and the 


THE FIRST SIGHT. 


17 


conscience-stricken Ranger’s wife started back. It was 
the jovial, mischief-loving face of the Ranger himself, 
that gleamed out of the ambush whence he had observed 
poor Martha’s embarrassment with the heartiest enjoy- 
ment. Yes, it was the very man she had not expected 
till evening, and who might have been already knocking 
ever so long at his house-door in vain. 

We must have sport,” said he; while, to the surprise 
of all, he pressed familiarly the stranger’s hand, in whose 
company he had already strolled away more than one 
hour that afternoon. 

Werner, who knew how to treat the difference of sta- 
tion with such delicacy, that he never suffered it to 
intrude on his deportment, had already won the old fel- 
low’s confidence by his conversation on the German 
forests ; and, thanks to his wanderings and the assistance 
of excellent periodicals, he was quite familiar with them. 
He had now, however, by his roguish tricks with the 
w^omen folks, raised his delight to such a pitch that the 
,Ranger could not sufficiently express his enjoyment at 
meeting the jolly companion once more. 

His wife, on her part, was glad enough to escape hear- 
ing the usual lecture', albeit but half meant in earnest, 
on her wash-and-bare-foot festival. She therefore held 
her peace, and withdrew silently among the tittering 
girls, to arrange her costume behind the shelter of another 
large sheet. The little rogues, however, manifested a 
more or less evident joy at the bold jest of the strange 
gentleman, for they were conscious of one thing : that 
even in their petticoats, and with their bare arms and 
feet, they presented a spectacle by no means so unat- 
3 


18 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


tractive. They no sooner heard that the bold fowler 
was going, by papa’s invitation, to pass the night at the 
Lodge, than all three hearts beat alike with untamable 
delight and curiosity. 

For, however different at bottom their natures were, 
still, in youth, the paths of life run not so far apart 
but that they could offer these three girls adventures 
that should agitate them all alike. Thus, Martha was, 
in reality, of a reflective and almost passive nature ; 
while Lenette’s disposition went forth to meet the whole 
world, frank and unruffled. Yet the pair could easily 
interchange their characters. Martha could be joyous 
for a whole day over a new dress, or a pretty ribbon ; 
while Lenette would be downcast just as long, if a pet 
bird died, or a friend put on mourning. 

To-day, however, the reviving cheerfulness that was 
painted on Martha’s blushing cheeks, seemed to have no 
long continuance. When the servants had taken up the 
wash in baskets, and packed it on the cart, and all set 
out on their homeward path, her confusion was shown 
clearly enough ; while her two young friends, on the con- 
trary, were congratulating each other over a pleasant 
evening and their handsome guest, with an anticipation 
that was almost irrepressible. 

They had now reached the crossway where they must 
separate, and Martha put out her hand to Lenette, and 
bade her a timid good-by. “But you must not go. 
You must spend the evening with us at the Lodge — we 
won’t let you go.” Still, she answered in a sorrowful 
voice, by which all perceived that she could scarcely re- 
press her tears : “ Oh ! how can I do that on my conse- 
cration eve ?” They continued to urge her, but in vain. 


THE FIRST SIGHT. 


19 


She insisted resolutely on going, took her leave of her 
friends, and was just thinking how she ought to greet 
the stranger, when all perceived a tall, thin man, who 
was walking along in a thicket, across the path. 

His demeanor was solemn, and he wore a very long 
coat, whose tails spread themselves far apart at each 
stride, and streamed behind. From the proud, stiff bear- 
ing of his figure, Werner at once discerned the man, and 
felt sure that he must he either the village parson, or 
its schoolmaster ; only he seemed not fat enough for the 
fwmer, and not hungry enough for the latter. Yet the 
Ranger replied to his question : It is the clergyman. 
The little red church yonder is his cure ; and a strange 
original he is. Watch now ; for as soon as he sees us, 
that instant he’s off.” 

As he said this, he saluted the parson from his side 
of the path. The latter had first been made conscious 
of the company, by Martha’s voice ; he now returned the 
greeting with coldness, and bashfully sought to plunge 
deeper into the thicket ; but Martha, who had only then 
reached him, held him back, wound her arms round him, 
and kissed him with extreme tenderness. She had looked 
so charming in the act of giving up her wishes, that Wer- 
ner, who suspected some design on every pretty exhibi- 
tion, and here especially without the slightest foundation, 
fancied he could see coquetry in it all. 

The icy coldness of the parson’s manner was not in 
the least softened by her gentle endearment ; but In- 
spector Andrew had, in the meanwhile, approached him 
with an appearance of great submission. To him, he 
gave a friendly salutation. They interchanged a word 
or two, then separated ; and, as the parson vanished 


20 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE, 


behind some neighboring trees, Martha came skipping 
gleesomelj back with her cousin, to meet the party. 
May you ?” asked Lenette, with manifest surprise. 
“ Yes, yes ! I can spend the evening with you,” replied 
Martha, and threw herself joyously upon her neck. 


ASCENSION EVE. 


21 


CHAPTER II. 

ASCENSION EVE. 

There are but few houses nowadays that have inher- 
ited the famous old German hospitality ; yet, if there be 
a spot where one can find it almost always genuine and 
unsophisticated, it is the dwelling of a forest Ranger. 
The rich peasant, or the parson, particularly if marriage- 
able daughters account thee a suitor, may hospitably 
harbor thee ; but the former, with his entertainment, 
ever makes thee feel that it comes from his wealth — the 
latter, that it comes from God, who has created the 
world, to the end that good fat livings may exist upon it. 

At a Ranger’s, however, you will observe not so much 
whence all comes, as how cheerfully all is offered. 
Among the hearty hunting folk, there is ever an air of 
the old chivalry in the house. They consume what they 
have, and while the forest exists, there is always enough. 
They are happy in solitude, because in God’s nature one 
is never lonely, but still happier in companionship, since 
we are made for each other. There man exists to toil, 
and w^elcomes the wine that dispels his cares — the joy 
that opens his heart, and gives him fresh strength for 
his task. 

So at least, it w'as at Gerhard’s dw^elling. That was 
a house where health and cheerfulness still lived ; where 
3 * 


22 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


the riddle of happiness was solved, because one knew 
not that it was a riddle. Far from the world of refine- 
ment, true to their nature, and the primitive simplicity 
of manners, they knew not that there existed a virtue 
whose name was temperance, or a life which was a bur- 
den. They were happy and continued so, because there 
was no longing after happiness ; because they had no 
need, while reality was so rich, to forget the possible over 
the impossible. Joyously did they toil on the week day, 
and rested even more joyfully the Sunday. In the festal 
hour, and over their work, they sang the old popular 
ballads of love and wine, played their love games on St. 
Valentine’s day, on Shrove Tuesday had their pancakes, 
dyed eggs at Easter, practised their wit on the first of 
April, and, when the old year had all but run down, 
sought to read in the poured out lead, the fate of the new. 

The old Ranger was not a man who had groped his 
way blindly into life, and had attained this domestic bliss 
through fate. He had looked round manfully upon the 
world in his younger days, had struggled through toil, 
necessity, and fate of every sort, and was, after all, per- 
haps, right, when to Werner’s many satirical remarks 
upon the great world — for example, his anecdote of 
Prince Waldemar, who had instituted a secret order, 
through which he sent to every vanquished beauty, an 
emerald, set in brilliants — he ever added his “ I know 
all that.” This honest man had carried with him, 
through his life wanderings, a deeply felt longing for a 
firm, sure life destiny; and he must have possessed heart, 
understanding, good will, and a fortunate tact, to lay 
such a foundation. 

Even dignity and bearing were not wanting to one 


ASCENSION EVE. 


23 


who had achieved this. To-day, as they were about to 
place themselves at the evening board, the good wife, 
who sought to atone to the guest for her demeanor to 
the stranger, had set for him the Ranger’s own wicker 
arm-chair at the head of the table, but her husband put 
it again in its accustomed place, saying, in his manly 
tone: — 

“ Why so ? No ceremony, wife ; our guest knows how 
to get along with me. We two are honest old Germans, 
who take no offence. Here I sit in my warm corner of 
the nest, where I can see all my pretty birdlings around 
me. Look you, my fine fellow” — he continued to Wer- 
ner, as he poured out for him and himself a good glass 
of home-made country wine — “ young company — that’s 
my delight. Let other rich folks throw away their 
hundred gold-pieces on a japanned flower or an East 
Indian poodle — I have a different fancy. For my part, 
I love a jovial human countenance ; and though you do 
make a long face at it, old woman, I fill to that so long 
as there is a drop in the cellar. Ah ! I perceive it. To- 
day every flask I tap sends a stab through your heart, 
and each slice you cut from the ham, cuts you through 
the middle of the soul.” 

The good wife looked angrily, at the same time cast- 
ing her eye towards the stranger ; but the Ranger broke 
into a loud laugh: “Ah!” he continued, “ does that 
pain you ? We shall keep our silver wedding, I see, and 
not understand one another after all. It is true, indeed, 
that what one does not learn young, he never learns. 
Can I then, never bring it about, that my old woman 
understands a joke ? We must have pleasure out of life, 
and I growl it out many a time, right gladly. In truth, 


24 


THE EOSE OF THE PARSONAOE. 


it is not meant so seriously ; and yet, though I have 
laughed after it a hundred thousand times, she doesn’t 
observe it. She takes it this day as much in earnest, as 
the first time, twenty-five years ago.” 

“Is it though” — appealed the good wife to Werner 
— “ a proper pleasure to be eternally bantering other 
honest folks ?” 

“lie will understand it,” broke in the old man, “ he 
is my man. If pleasures come not in life of their own 
accord, we must seek them. If we can’t always enjoy 
ourselves in the good that we have, we must enjoy our- 
selves over the bad that another has. Isn’t it time, old 
woman, and you, my little Dora ? Isn’t it time that all 
you women folk understand that pleasure ? Look, you ! 
we men can’t always amuse ourselves in fondling one 
another; we are often in no mood for it, so we take our 
amusement in bantering each other. 0, yes, there are 
always plenty of pleasures in the world, if we were only 
cunning enough to find them.” 

Werner understood perfectly how to enter int© the 
old man’s humor, but he had a greater desire just now 
to draw the young girls into conversation. Here, too, 
the old Ranger found his enjoyment in teasing them 
with more or less raillery. They discussed Werner’s 
surprise on all sides, and Martha had to yield herself to 
many a jest. The Ranger asked her whether the gentle- 
man had indeed hurt her so much, for she had screamed 
so loud that he had heard her a quarter of an hour olF, 
and hurried up, supposing some great misfortune must 
have happened. 

Martha was again and again overspread with blushes. 
She could not endure that they should observe her, that 


ASCENSION EVE. 


25 


they should speak of her, and draw her affairs, which 
she was ever wont to weave up as it were within herself, 
before the gaze of others. She had an old habit in such 
embarrassments of plucking involuntarily at her dress, 
and many a lace collar, and many a belt, had she thus 
destroyed. Even Werner observed this plucking, as 
her young friends called it, but it amused him to detain 
Martha in such a graceful embarrassment, and he con- 
tinued the conversation. 

She had already won his whole interest from the two 
other girls, and he occupied himself almost exclusively 
with her. Though never so little communicative, that 
became at once as though by magnetism a sympathetic 
conversation, which needed no word, no touch, scarcely 
a look, but only a consciousness, to occupy them in the 
liveliest and tenderest manner. However silent she 
was, and however little she ventured, she never for an 
instant seemed apathetic. Her blood was so excitable 
and her skin so delicate, that at each word, each look, 
you might follow her emotion over her cheeks even to 
her bosom. The face was in her what it so seldom is, 
the unveiled mirror of the soul; every inspiration of her 
warm life breathed visibly over it. 

Werner was no rake. He was too much of a humor- 
ist, and too passionless for that; yet he had so thoroughly 
polished aw^ay all modesty in the world where he had 
grown up, that Martha’s blushing embarrassment did 
not frighten him from his self-composure, but rather 
seemed in his eyes a charming affectation, that called for 
still bolder raillery. He had gone so far as to entreat 
her not to take his jest in ill part ; he assured her she 
had no reason to be confused ; he would confess either 


26 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


before the company, or alone, as she preferred, every- 
thing that he had espied, from the great toe even to the 
heel. 

The old man smiled, the mother tried to put on a seri- 
ous air, but it only reached the corner of her mouth. 
Martha was blushing blood-red, when Lenette sprang up, 
interrupted the conversation, and called out ; “ Come, let 
us play at some game!” 

The young people now ranged themselves in a circle 
near mamma. 

From hand to hand, now here, now yonder, 

The little ring must ever wander. 

So went their ditty. It was a natural, simple, in- 
significant game, and yet the man of the world found it 
charming ; possibly because it was, after all, not alto- 
gether so simple and unmeaning as it seemed. What 
an opportunity for neat little attentions found itself in 
the childishness of this hide and seek. How the thread 
on whose circle the ring travelled round, became the 
conductor of innumerable electrical attractions. All 
seemed chance, yet nothing was so. Whether Werner 
placed himself in this spot or that, hunted for the ring 
in this or that tiny hand, and found it in one or another, 
every touch, every turn, every glance had its meaning ; 
and the Ranger, who looked on with delight from his 
arm-chair, flask and glass before him, amused himself in 
following this undercurrent of significance, and translat- 
ing it into words and jests. 

Many a time in succession had Martha found the ring 
with Werner, for he never gave it up until she looked 
for it in his hand ; and, in return, many a time had he 


ASCENSION EVE. 


27 


detected it with her, for he never looked for it anywhere 
but in her keeping ; while the old fellow would tell them, 
banteringly : “ You must be practising a ring exchange,” 
and think to himself : “Play on, play on ! many a sober 
earnest is born of a sport.” 

Poor Andrew, meanwhile, who prided himself im- 
mensely on his inspectorship, and in the beginning had 
been willing to unite as an equal with the genteel 
stranger, felt himself thrown quite into the background 
by the universal preference shown the latter; and be- 
haved -in the game, as if his politeness alone compelled 
him to descend to such a pastime. When Gerhard, 
however, made that jesting allusion to Martha, he blushed 
again and again. 

Werner was watching inquisitively to find out what 
relation the couple bore to each other, and marked it 
well. He observed Martha also; and it did not escape 
him that for the moment she was more silent, but ap- 
peared, notwithstanding, to be at heart pleased. From 
time to time she would utter a soft cry of merriment at 
some harmless jest, but only when it was aimed at one 
of the others, never at herself. 

The pleasure this little game afforded them was so 
lively that they turned quickly to another and another. 
Werner maintained that he was a novice in them all, 
and yet it was he whose inventive faculties alone knew 
how^ to give them all their true zest. When they agreed 
among themselves, that one should throw a handkerchief 
to another, and call out at the same time a word for 
which he must find a fitting combination on the instant, 
or pay' a forfeit ; his wit and presence of mind were 
conspicuous. Ilis answer uniformly occasioned a sur- 


28 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


prise, and liis question in return was always either hard 
to meet, or had some bright significance, so that Lenette 
at last exclaimed to him — 

“Why, here have we known these games so long that 
they have often been tiresome to us ; and now you, the 
novice, must he the first to show us what one can make 
out of them.” 

Both natural inclination and the bent of habit always 
made Werner strive to ingratiate himself in the world 
of beauty by every possible means-; and he now sought 
to do so by putting the crown upon the jests with which 
all the girls, not excepting Martha herself, had perse- 
cuted the comically solemn inspector. For Andrew 
tried to conceal his awkwardness by acting as if the 
game were w^orthy of only half his attention ; while 
Werner appeared wholly devoted to it. Werner now 
threw the handkerchief to him, and with it the word 
choir. Andrew collected himself and replied, as he 
turned away, choir-hoy. As soon as Werner again had 
the handkerchief, he threw it afresh at Andrew ; and 
this time too he saved himself after long reflection with 
choir-stairs. The third time he could find no more 
combinations and must pay his forfeit, while they shouted 
at him from all sides, choir., choir. At this, he loses all 
self-command, can give not a single answer, and has to 
pay forfeit after forfeit, while little Dora calls out to him: 
“ The practical alone — no passion — no upsetting.” 

He is now all but totally plundered. Handkerchief, 
gloves, money, eye-glass, even cravat and rufiles, all 
have been taken from him by Dora and Lenette, who 
still worry him pertinaciously for a new compound of 
the hated word. At last, they hunt out of him a word 


ASCENSION EVE. 


29 


to match with clwir^ but poor Andrew has no rest for 
that. Werner broaches a new compound with corps, 
and when no one could think of a word for it, he gives 
the deathblow to this poor rundown victim among the 
common merriment, with the words chorister, choral, 
coral, and takes his parricide shirt collars, and even the 
little gold buttons of his shirt, as final spoils for Dora. 

The old man now joined in the frolic, and declared he 
must rescue little Andrew from such a race of beauties. 
He teased Dora with a compound on the name of a 
monosyllabic Italian stream, and kept warning her with 
his mischievous look all the time, while the girls around 
could scarcely suppress their laughter. “Something 
genteel, Dolly, something genteel,” till she, like Andrew, 
had at last to pay forfeit after forfeit. 

The youthful merriment was now on the verge of 
running into extravagance. The good-wife had spiced 
up the dry native wine with sugar and oranges in honor 
of her guest, whose praise of her dishes had raised him 
greatly in her estimation ; and the girls, deceived by its 
sweetness, drank glass after glass in the most unre- 
strained hilarity. To induce them to drink still more 
freely, Werner proposed a succession of toasts to papa, 
mamma, the ladies, and that well-known general, Que 
nous aimons. “Happy home, fortunate land!” he ex- 
claimed, “ where one can draw wine and life from the 
full, the exhaustless springs of nature. Long live the 
master of a house which produces such wine and such 
daughters!” and as he said this, he drank to the 
Ranger, who emptied his glass with no little emotion. 
Then, drinking to the girls, he said : “ Long live the 


30 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


beauties whose lips kiss the wine, to spice it for us 
through their own delight.” 

Dora pledged him at once, as she tossed off all her 
glass. Lenette, laughingly, clinked hers against his 
own, but Martha merely tasted hers in silent, peaceful 
enjoyment. 

Almost all had now had their little pointed jests, 
when they returned to the redemption of the forfeits. 
Of course, one of the girls had the forfeits in her lap, 
and kept assuring everybody that all was done fairly ; 
but how natural it was when sentence was passed, to 
select his forfeit whom it would most embarrass. 
Andrew was tormented afresh, and compelled among 
other things to carry six cart-loads of stone ; that is, to 
rumble with his forehead up the room-door six times. 
Fun like this, however, did not suit the old man. “Let 
us have sport,” saiti he, and pronounced a ransom to 
fall into the well. It was Lenette’s turn. “Who will 
help me?” she cried, running into the middle of the 
room. Of course it was the humane Werner that was at 
once ready to rescue her, and the old man again shouted 
out, as he inquired how he could liberate her, “ Hold 
her by the head, man, and do your best to keep the 
water from running into her mouth.” Werner under- 
stood this delicate knightly duty perfectly, and stopped 
her lips with a pair, of the heartiest kisses. How the 
company shouted, while Dora called to him, “ Be sure 
and don’t hurt yourself.” 

To redeem his forfeit, Werner was condemned to write 
something, and produced a scrap from his favorite poet, 
Heind. It was the piquant, suggestive poem of Donna 
Clara, the Spanish Alcalde’s daughter. He understood 


ASCENSION EVE. 


31 


the tone, at once delicate and pointed, of this salon 
poetry, for it lay too near his own character not to be 
easily hit. With all the ornament, then, of which his 
full manly voice was capable, he gave prominence to the 
enchantment of that union in the myrtle bower, and as 
they listened to him with breathless silence, he continued 
watching them, meanwhile, with evident contentment. 

With love’s tender cord of bliss 
He hath wound her to him close ; 

Brief the word, a lingering kiss, 

All her soul with joy o’erflows ; 

Hear the nightingale, low breathing, 

Trill his melting marriage hymn ; 

See their torch-dance gayly wreathing, 

Glow-worms flicker out and in. 

Darkling quiet, stillness utter. 

Brood o’er all above, beneath. 

Save the conscious myrtle’s flutter. 

And the floweret’s long-drawn breath. 

With these words he had suffered his voice to sink 
more and more, and now made a pause of some length 
to feast himself with half-suppressed smile on the im- 
pression manifest in his listeners’ faces. The good-wife, 
who was familiar with spiritual songs alone, at once 
thought of her hymn-book, and listened to those verses 
with intense devotion. The old man pricked up his ears 
and smiled craftily, keeping a watchful silence, for he 
suspected that the drift must soon disclose itself. 
Andrew put on his official look, which at once showed 
that, as usual, he understood nothing about it. Lenette 
blushed, which she seldom did; and Dora stifled a smile, 
which she did still more seldom. Martha listened 
dreamily, and. took in the poetical charm without compre- 


32 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


bending the covert allusion. When Werner’s eye then 
met hers, she did not at first avoid it, but looked at him 
reflectively, awaiting the conclusion. 

With all his experience in the great world, there were 
but two sorts of intercourse with the fair sex that Wer- 
ner knew — the etiquette of the saloon, where one 
touches only with the kid glove, and the tone of aban- 
don, for which formal manners establish no limits ; he 
scarcely knew, therefore, what to make of this innocent 
artlessness. 

He thought it surely unnecessary to preserve here 
the tone of an empty formality, for every one exhibited 
himself as he was, and they were assembled to be merry 
together. Still, when a little white hand would rest 
confidingly on his shoulder, or when he would make bold 
to press a soft bare arm, a feeling possessed him, which 
at such a touch in other intercourse, he was not used to 
control. Gaining confidence from the hale roughness of 
the old Ranger, and the unconstrained unbounded 
familiarity of Dora, he thought he might venture even 
here to give vent to the light frivolities that were but 
too habitual with him. 

He was standing with Martha in the recess of a 
window, and was speaking to her in a poetical way of the 
purport of what he had been reciting. “Happy Spain,” 
he exclaimed, “with its myrtle groves and its Alcalde’s 
daughters in them I With us in the North, you will 
find no spot where the nightingales sing marriage hymns, 
and the glow-worms skip about in the torch-dance. 
Yet perhaps here on the Rhine, the vine leaves are as 
cunning as those myrtles of which my poet sings. Per- 
haps one hears here, too, only the low whispers of the flut- 


ASCENSION EVE. 


33 


tering conscious myrtles. Ha, ha ! cunning myrtles,” 
continued he with a smile : “ I wonder why they were 
so cunning, those myrtles !” 

Not until now did Martha redden. Werner spoke 
still more broadly, and she plucked at her belt. Her 
embarrassment amused him, and he would not stop. 
Then, on a sudden, a key was heard dropping on the 
ground, and coins rolling over the floor. Poor Martha 
had broken her apron-strings, and the whole company 
burst into a hearty laugh. The old man whispered 
something into the ear of his guest, at which Werner 
smiled, but at the same time set himself to tranquillize 
her timidity. 

His cigar case had now to be ransomed, and the 
penalty was to print a kiss underneath the candle- 
stick. The master of the house was again the counsellor, 
for he held the light over his wife’s head, and kissed her 
underneath the candlestick. As Werner must repeat 
the experiment, but with a free field for selection, he 
ran with the light to Martha, who was sitting in silent 
retirement in a corner. The instant she perceived his 
design, she sprang up in visible inward terror, but 
Werner as quickly follo\fed her. 

Fearful and light as a frightened doe, she flies through 
the room, throws down the plates and candlesticks from 
the table, and makes for the door. Her hand is already 
on the latch, as a strong arm holds her back. The old 
Ranger, who sat close by the door in his easy-chair, has 
spanned her slender waist with his huge brawny fist, 
and calls out to her, “ No, no, the ransom must be paid.” 

It was a picturesque sight enough, this laughing, 
frolicsome old man, sitting in his high arm-chair, his 

4 * 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


8i 

morning cap on liis head, and prisoning in his arms this 
flying Grace, with her bright-colored, fluttering apron ; 
while she, with anxious, imploring mien, sees the pursuing 
Adonis already at her feet. But to Werner’s eye, each 
struggle was a fresh provocation, and he has already 
clasped her waist from behind with a victorious look. 
She sees him, amid the ecstasy of the party, raise the 
candle with his other hand over her head, and with a look 
of such bold, triumphant delight, that, with a piercing cry, 
all power of resistance left her. As he held her in his 
arms, flattering himself that he saw a vanquished Grace 
now willingly sinking there, and that she would, perhaps, 
with a forward tenderness even press his own lips, Lenette, 
with an anxious but resolute air, stepped between them. 
‘‘My God!” she exclaims, “what are you doing!” and 
snatches his pure prey from him ; and he sees Martha, 
pale as death, and pressing her heart in deep emotion, 
sink unconscious into the arms of her friend. 

Martha had grown up under an education in which 
she remained not only strange to such coarse jokes as 
these at the Banger’s ; but was accustomed to so sensi- 
tive a strictness of thought, that every allusion, however 
distant, to a tender relation, was embarrassing: and even 
the imputation of allowing herself to be kissed, would 
have reduced her to despair. An old difficulty, in the 
form of a sudden spasm of the heart, which had fre- 
quently attacked her since her later childhood, whenever 
her timid nature was convulsed by some violent emotion, 
had again shown itself to-day, and for the first time in 
a great while. Still, the spasm did not last long. As 
if alarmed at the sudden stillness she had caused, 
Martha quickly collected herself. “ Oh ! what have I 


ASCENSION EVE. 


35 


done !” she exclaimed, begged Lenette to excuse her, 
and urged them to renew their game. 

But the Banger’s wife was out of humor over her 
broken plates. Werner, contemplative over his own 
fault, and this young girl’s sensitiveness. Martha, quiet 
through shame and exhaustion ; Lenette occupied in 
quietly attending to her, and all were in no humor for 
general hilarity. There was a pause in the conversa- 
tion ; and to fill it up, Lenette handed cake around, and 
filled the glasses afresh. They chatted together in 
little groups; Werner with the Ranger, who talked with 
him about Martha. 

He compared her with the vine in blossom : “ Only 

let it be a little too moist, or too cool, or too windy, 
and it is all over with it.” Werner could scarcely be- 
lieve that she was going to receive her first communion 
to-morrow, and the Ranger explained it to him: “ That,” 
said he, “is a notion of the parson’s. She couldn’t be 
confirmed before, either because he never can find a soul 
ripe for that late enough ; or else that he might keep 
her a child as long as possible. Yes, from her youth 
the child has known but scant enjoyment. Can you be- 
lieve that she has scarcely been out into the world for 
a year and a day past. That is why she is so singu- 
lar and so coy; but when honest folks who like good 
cheer get together, the old fellow always spies the devil 
among them.” 

The strange appearance of the parson had roused 
Werner’s curiosity, but the Ranger could draw no clear 
portrait of him. “He always looks so cross,” he went 
on, “ that I wonder why God has not let all the bad 
weather stay over him, for fear his face should dry up 


36 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


all the moisture ; and when he prays at church, one 
would think he was snarling at God. I think he is a 
screechowl, a man one must take for such, because he 
was once stuck into an unlucky skin. And his blessed 
learning has set a pair of spectacles on him upside 
down, or that he sees clearly what is dark, and darkly 
what is clear. He is one of those who think everything 
is accomplished by a prayer, and provided one makes no 
mistake there, his crop must grow better through naked 
prayer than his neighbors, who, instead of praying, has 
manured well.” 

“Yes, indeed,” added the good-wife, who now took 
part in the chat ; “ he is just what one calls a — ” but 
here the word was not at hand, so she looked about in 
all directions, and at last came out with “ a downright 
stock ;” but even that didn’t seem to her just the word, 
and Werner at last suggested that she meant a stoic, as 
one of the neighboring pastors had once called him. 
Now she knew a great deal more about him. She was 
sure he must have a guilty conscience, but no one could 
say exactly what about. Yes, it was even reported that 
he had intercourse with the devil in person, and folks 
had seen the old boy, in the ghostly hours, come up out 
of the Rhine in a black robe, and walk over the church- 
yard, into the parsonage. That, she confessed, was 
only the gabble of the vulgar ; but still, it was very un- 
comfortable to her, and to be rid of such subjects, she 
added : “ Be that as it may, one thing is sure ; there 

is no luck in the house ; one can see that in all their 
faces. The poor girl is blighted, and the son too ! what 
a pity it is that he why there he is, himself !” 

Her tale thus ended, at the very instant when the 


ASCENSION EVE. 


37 


door, carelessly left open, was slammed to by a draft 
from the open window, while the curtains streamed into 
the room, and extinguished some of the lights. Werner 
glanced round, and observed a strange form, that, with 
its gloomy, timid, and yet singularly significant manner, 
excited his curiosity. 

“ Welcome, Herr Candidate ! Once more among mor- 
tals, eh ?” the Ranger called out heartily to him. 

The new-comer stepped in, but forgot to take off his 
hat. He looked bashfully around the room, as if trying 
to find his latitude, and without changing his depressed 
look, endeavored to return the greeting. But the words 
would not come ; he stuttered, and at last got out “Herr 
Rector,” instead of Herr Ranger. He noticed his mis- 
take at once, but could find no better word, and, bowing 
awkwardly, remained dumb. Even here a mischance 
befell him. Lenette had just stepped up to welcome 
him, and he trod on her foot ; she screamed out ; he 
rushed backwards, knocked a candle off the table, and 
was on the very point, as he stooped to pick it up, of 
drawing over the table-cover, and prolonging his misad- 
ventures to an infinite string, as Lenette stepped be- 
tween, and again asked him, not without a smile, for a 
return of her greeting. 

He seemed to take it for derision. The gloomy wrin- 
kles crept stormily down from his temples to the root of 
his nose ; he turned his back to her, and said to the 
Ranger’s wife, in an abrupt tone — 

“ My sister must go home.” 

What a lamentation arose at this. Lenette begged 
him to stay, and told him he knew that everybody was 
asleep at home, long ago, for they all went to bed there 


38 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


at nine o’clock, and he might stay longer, just as well as 
not. The Ranger and his wife added their good word, 
but he repulsed them curtly and churlishly. At last 
Dora stepped behind him, and pinched his ear, saying, 
“ I’m here, too, Johnny. Haven’t you seen me yet ? 
Stay now, that’s a good fellow, and we’ll all go home 
together, afterwards.” John began to feel a wish to 
stay ; in fact, he was only waiting for some one to urge 
him a little more, but it seemed as if no one had courage 
to try it, so he stood there, irresolute and perplexed. At 
last, Lenette ventured another appeal. He must be well- 
mannered, and stay ; that was always proper towards 
the ladies, if he did but know it ; otherwise one might 
say of him: “What Johnny doesn’t learn, John will 
never learn.” He now consented, and the company 
continued together. 

They all tried anew to be right jovial, but you could 
very soon see that, in spite of the good intention, the 
material was wanting. One thing after another was 
tried, but there was no more real enjoyment. Hereupon 
Andrew proposed an entertainment. He who was so 
modest and cowed down, while conscious of the stranger’s 
ascendency, came out at once, when he thought there was 
a chance of showing his superiority to the new-comer. 

He was absent a short time in the kitchen, and, re- 
turning with a dish of flour in his hand, invited John to 
join him in preparing a very superior diversion for the 
party. The latter, now that the sight of Dora had 
made him constrain himself towards the company, as- 
sented, and they sat down on chairs opposite to each 
other, in the middle of the room. Andrew then asked 
his vis d vis to dip his finger into the flour, and paint 


ASCENSION EVE. 


39 


just the same streaks on his face that he would have 
upon John’s. To this he consented, and a half mous- 
tache was scarcely drawn, when the whole room burst 
into peals of laughter. John, it must be confessed, 
could not see what was so extraordinarily laughable in 
it all, hut it satisfied him that others laughed. He 
squinted from time to time at Dora, and gave himself no 
further trouble about the matter, as Lenette would ex- 
claim, ‘‘ Oh ! now that’s too had I” continuing all the 
while to copy faithfully on his cousin’s face, the map- 
ings he felt on his own. When the Inspector had painted 
his whiskers, moustaches, and chin tuft, had streaked 
over his nose, brow, and cheeks, till there was scarce any 
more room for tattooing, he begged John to rise. All 
seemed bursting with laughter, and even John, himself, 
had to laugh over the other’s miller face. Then Andrew 
led him to the glass, and — horror runs through his limbs ; 
an old resentment flames out into terrible fury — he seizes 
Andrew by the throat with frenzied grasp, shakes him, 
and beats him in the face, until the blood mingled with 
the white meal ; for, instead of the counterpart of his 
whitened adversary, he sees the black face of a negro in 
the glass. 

Andrew had grimed the bottom of the dish with soot, 
and while John dipped his finger into the flour on top, 
he dived his own into the blackness below. 

The vain, jealous insolence of the practical Inspector, 
however, was severely punished. As Werner sprang 
between and forced them apart, his dress was so de- 
stroyed, his parricidal collars so crushed, his shirt-bosom 
and face so daubed with blood and flour, that nothing 
was left him but quietly to take himself off, with stifled 


40 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


rage, and without an adieu to the company, whose deri- 
sion and disgust accompanied him. 

John became master of himself again, just as quickly 
as he had been hurried away by his rage ; but when he 
was collected, and conscious of what he had done, he 
had not the least tact to jcompose matters again, but, 
seizing his hat without a word, he rushed out of the room. 

Martha, too, tried to go, for Dora had already ab- 
ruptly disappeared ; but the hostess held her back, till 
she could become cool. They clustered together once 
more, drank a parting glass, and exchanged a few quiet, 
thoughtful words on the events pf the day. 

Werner had at last to believe that Martha was desti- 
tute of coquetry, and really modest, even to bashfulness. 
She looked quietly and sorrowfully before him, and 
manifested a disregard of him, not altogether free from 
anger. But he had too refined a tenderness towards 
the fair sex, possibly in return for the many dear recol- 
lections he owed it ; and too much personal vanity withal, 
to be indifferent about parting with a pretty girl unre- 
conciled. What he has lost by his boldness, he means to 
regain by gentleness and good-nature. The hostess was 
busied over her housekeeping, the old man too sleepy, 
the girl herself too modest to speak ; so the conversation 
fell to him, and he began to speak of the Rhine. So 
much confidence had sprung up among them, that each 
forgot that they had met a few hours ago for the first 
time. Werner recalled this. He stepped away for an 
instant from this familiarity, out into his own more ex- 
panded horizon, and spoke as a stranger to strangers, of 
whom he had become fond in so short a time. He alluded 


ASCENSION EVE. 


41 


to the sensations that the prospect in the valley had pro- 
duced, and the impression made by to-day’s society. 

“As I stepped forth,” said he, “not four-and-twenty 
hours ago, from the hustle of a city, from that bottom- 
less stream, where one can inhale no momentary draught 
of tranquillity and joy, though only to keep one’s self on 
the surface — as I stepped out to-day from the opening 
in the forest, and saw for the first time the magnificent 
stream gliding deep below my feet, while from the firm 
earth I looked down tranquilly into the eternal waters, 
where the sky lay mirrored, a spirit of peace, of love 
for nature, seemed to smile at me from out this enchanted 
glass, that forced me to ask myself, whether in life too, 
they could not again be found. And now — ” here he 
passed from a tone bordering on the sentimental, into 
one of graceful gallantry ; — “ now that I have lingered 
with you, my lovely friends, now I feel that I have found 
this pure peace, this poetic tranquillity. Yes, I might 
even go further, and say that you are the spirits — the 
fairies of this spot; the nymphs of the stream, who trans- 
fer the guidance of this blissful nature into human life.” 

Martha became attentive and earnest. Lenette saw 
nothing in the compliment hut mockery, and declined 
it, as she answered: “If we are nymphs, we are at 
least not amorous nymphs, "who entice folks to them ; 
but when we find anybody in love, all we do with him is 
to tease him.” 

“ I have given your roguish eyes credit for that from 
the first,” he replied. “You and your companion share 
in the fascinations they attribute to the Rhine nymphs. 
Fraulein Martha takes the tender, you the sportive for 
5 . 


42 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


your part, and -whicli is the more enchanting, I can 
scarcely confess to myself. In all earnest, though, how 
can you deny that the Rhine glorifies your whole exist- 
ence ? Has it not been the spirit of the wine that has 
roused us to cheerfulness, and united us in such fami- 
liarity in the first hour of our acquaintance ? And the 
spirit of wine, the fire that is pressed from the cluster, 
does not that come from the aliment that ascends from 
the stream, upon the hills ? Does not that come from 
the air, the dew, the rain, which steam up from him, to 
sink humbly down again upon the blossoms and the 
berries?” 

“ Yes, if one only so understand it,” retorted the 
still incredulous Lenette ; “one can prove a great deal 
in that way.” 

“At least,” continued Werner, “ there is no need of 
proving that life here is happier, purer, and richer than 
in the rugged North or parching South, on the foggy 
coast, or amid arid sands. I could almost believe that 
no misery and no mishap can reach here ; and, if there 
be any, still, life in a nation such as this, and among 
people such as I have learned to know to-day, must 
always have less real misery than bliss itself in many 
another spot.” 

All this he had said with the nicest calculation, and 
a close observation of Martha. She looked down on 
the ground, then threw a rapid glance at him, became 
thoughtful, and involuntarily heaved a gentle sigh. It 
startled her, and she quickly collected herself; and, as 
Werner ceased, she turned a full, tranquil, open look 
upon him, and replied, as if conscious that he was ex- 
pecting an answer from her. 


ASCENSION EVE. 


43 


‘‘ One may live here otherwise than — happily. You 
do not yet know the Rhine, and — you do not know us.” 

If her first words sounded almost painful, she raised 
herself in maiden pride at the last, and showed even a 
slight contempt, too, that forbade the intrusive stranger 
a glance into her inner heart. Werner never remem- 
bered to have seen a dignity so entirely without affecta- 
tion. He tried to reply with a jest; but Martha, im- 
pelled by inward uneasiness, got up and decided reso- 
lutely to take her leave. She wished them good-night, 
with a gentleness that was not merely the custom of the 
young girls, but the most deep-felt thanks for a happy 
evening. Last of all, she greeted Werner, and there 
was a pertness in her manner, too, which he could not 
have anticipated from her bearing in other respects. 

Martha was not yet, however, rid of the stranger, 
who had excited so many emotions in her, within a few 
hours. The Ranger, joking even in his sleep, found 
that it was altogether necessary for Martha to let him 
accompany her home. This she meant to escape, and 
flew out of the house; but Werner, urged on by the 
Ranger, hastened after her, into the warm starry night. 

He had scarcely stepped across the court-yard into 
the wood, when the glistening dress that had hitherto 
glimmered towards him, vanished from his view. He 
was unacquainted with the path, and began to despair 
of ever reaching her, when his hound, who had pressed 
out of the house-door alongside of him, came bounding 
gleesomely towards him, out of the darkness ; and gave 
promise of setting him on her track. 

He followed the capering animal along a narrow foot- 
path, through bushes fragrant in the night breeze; and 


44 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


something seizes him hastily, but softly, by the hand. 
It was Martha, who, frightened by the dog, as he circled 
round her, and pulled at her dress, did not venture to go 
any further. 

“If I cannot be free from you” — she faltered, still 
breathless from her flight — “ come, then, with me.” 
She held his hand so trustingly, that he almost believed 
her bashfulness hitherto was only put on before others ; 
and as she hurried on all but wildly before him, her 
panting respiration audible, the opinion was forced 
upon him that his proximity, and the solitude of night, 
had now removed the barriers, behind which her tem- 
perament had hitherto concealed itself. He could lay 
no bounds any longer to his conjectures, and thought 
her whole conduct only explicable as subtle calculation. 
She was still a poetical being to him, still interesting; 
but interesting only as a perfect coquette. 

She drew him along with her still hurriedly. The 
cool dewy sprays that she thrust aside flirted in his face; 
the nightingale sang, and he fancied it the marviage 
hymn. Martha’s hand became moist and warm, her 
breathing heavier — he began to hold her character as 
less than doubtful, and to think that, as a man of the 
world, he should not be behind her in tact. He loitered, 
followed more slowly, stood still; and endeavored to 
detain her, to kiss her hand, to draw her towards him. 
As he did so, she asked him, with a tone full of meaning ; 
one that in an instant explained all her deportment, all 
her behavior — 

“Would you like to see the Rhine?” 

Confounded at his error, at his want of insight, Wer- 
ner followed. A few steps more and they were in open 


ASCENSION EVE. 


45 


ground, then a short footpath, and they stood by an old 
wall. Martha opened a heavy door. It was a fragrant 
flower-laden garden — where, summer and winter alike, 
they dig and plant — in which they found themselves. 
They stood between the little red church and the flow- 
ing Rhine, in God’s flower-garden — the graveyard. 

She led him further on between the raised beds with 
their melancholy crosses, through the damp odor of the 
death-flowers, and the ambrosia of the lilacs, till she 
stood before a huge cross of white stone, which seemed 
to be stretching abroad its inanimate, clear, shimmering 
arms, inquiringly, longingly. 

Here she paused, pointed downward, and said: ‘‘There 
it lies;” and Werner stood upon a declivity at whose 
base he could hear the Rhine rustle, and plash, and roar 
with a gloomy monotony. He looked down and saw 
the dark mass of waters, whose incessant waves he re- 
cognized by the flickering reflection of the few larger 
planets, and then turned his gaze to those up aloft, 
where, in the cloudless firmament of heaven, they stood 
a monument of the indubitable, unalterable infinite; of 
that infinite, towards which every human existence ever 
longs in vain. 

The pair paused with a long reverential gaze at all 
that lay above them and below them. It was once 
more now, after a long period, in Werner’s power to 
have been elevated above all earthly feelings, to have 
risen into the fullest peace, to have enjoyed a frame of 
mind in truth religious; had not conscience, that same 
conscience, which, when a few moments ago, he was 
thinking of this girl, had been misled by fancy, sinned 
once again, and sufiered an unworthy feeling to creep 
5 * 


46 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


within. The memory of other sins and errors rose upon 
him, and the fermentation of all the purities and impu- 
rities, the elevated and grovelling elements of man’s 
heart, of whose very existence he had been a few mo- 
ments before unconscious, for an instant overcame him. 

As his singular guide at last broke the silence — 
‘‘ There, there, that is the Rhine! There is no stillness 
there ; like the heart, that ever rages, and hammers, and 
beats ; no rest, no tranquillity” — then he felt awed by 
her deep comprehension of his lightly-uttered words ; 
then he recognized the thoughtful reference with which 
she had led him hither. Since the last Jiated turn in his 
life’s destiny, there had been emotions which had torn 
him from all his lordly self-confidence ; and yet, because 
the moral support was wanting, they had only succeeded 
in filling his soul with a painful repugnance. Conse- 
crated by a longing for something nobler, these might 
now have been tranformed into an exalted sorrow of soul. 
In the deep grief of his heart, he might have indulged 
his sentiment towards her, and have told her imploringly 
of his boundless admiration ; but, rousing from her own 
revery, she broke abruptly in — 

“ How late it is! I must go into the house. I have 
never come home so late as this before — and to-day, 
of all others.” 

Since her tone was thus commonplace, he had, of 
course, nothing left but to say to her : ‘‘ I must leave 
this spot to-morrow, at dawn. An employment, the 
career of my life, draws me into business. But I shall 
return in the summer. May I visit you ? May I visit 
you and your parents ?” 

“Never!” she replied, with a sorrowful tone. “Alas 


ASCENSION EVE. 


47 


no one visits at our home. We shall perhaps never see 
each other again. You will soon forget me, and I will — 
think that you are the stream which never rests, but 
must ever glide on, on, far away; while I,” she sighed 
gently, ‘‘ I ever linger here, and gaze at it. Adieu, 
adieu ! Herr Werner ; and that you may not think me 
wilful” — this she said with a sportive tone, and on the 
instant he felt a light kiss breathed on his lips, and saw 
her glide away with her glimmering dress over the 
graves, and vanish in the dusky shadow of the church- 
tower. 


48 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


CHAPTEH III. 

FORGET ME NOT. 

It was the first kiss. 

A kiss ! — what a conception had this young girl formed 
to herself of that. What profanity, what sin, what dese- 
cration had she not fancied in it; yet now she Was 

it, then, from' a dainty appetite, or a wanton whim ? She 
could not answer her own question, why she had ven- 
tured it; but now that the incredible deed was done, 
what more was it than just — a kiss ? She was conscious 
that she ought to die of shame and penitence, and yet 
she felt just as tranquil and happy at heart as ever. 
Yes, the more she reflected on it, the more her heart 
swelled, the more her consciousness increased that she 
was happier to-day than she had ever been. Her whole 
existence had assumed a new significance, and a revela- 
tion seemed to have flashed over her. That unspeak- 
able longing, that mysterious musing in which she had 
brooded X)ver nature many a long hour, standing at that 
old cross, and which, as a gloomy, bodeful, oppressive 
feeling, had filled the larger part of her being with 
dread, was now transformed, by the lightning flash of a 
single thought, into clear, joyous knowledge. 

Deeply as she felt them herself, she had never heard 
the sesthetical charms of nature alluded to ; and thus 


FORGET ME NOT. 


49 


that stranger’s language, his comparison of nature with 
human life — a salon phrase, at best, and one which, as 
such, would have been forgotten in any salon — w’aked a 
new life in her. Her meditations were released into 
thoughts, her longings into words. A new sphere of 
perceptions burst before her, in a fulness and radiance 
that knew no forebodings; sublime as the sanctities of 
religion, near and familiar as earthly life. She felt so 
joyous over her existence, so conscious of her purity, 
that, before retiring, she roused her parents, to whom 
she owed it all, that she might embrace and kiss them. 

As she sank upon her maiden couch, with feelings 
such as these, the thought came over her, of how dif- 
ferently from her the stranger understood that nature 
with whose sanctities he was familiar. Knowledge had 
brought her bliss, while to him it had brought misery. 
The sight of the stream roused in her a longing after 
the remote, but in him after repose. Strange being, who 
had spoken of nature, life, the heart, the world, as she 
had never heard them spoken of. “Whence comest 
thou ? Through what hast thou lived ? What is that 
weariness that bids thee long after rest ? Rest ! where 
wilt thou find it ? Here on the Rhine, here with us, 
with me ?” 

She smiled at herself. “Rest with me!” What could 
he seek from her, what could she be to him ? Yet the 
image of her fancy still rose involuntarily before her. 
She pressed her hand softly to her lovely forehead, and 
asked it: “ What ails thee ?” And a holy feeling began 
to steal over her, such as she had sometimes known in 
church, at the thought that the Redeemer died and lives 
for all men. She clasped her hands in prayer; her spirit 


50 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


seemed carried aloft. She grew dizzy, and sank back- 
wards into tranquil dreams. 

She 'awoke with a peaceful heart, and awaited com- 
posedly the day so full of meaning. After repeating her 
morning prayer, she leaned out of the window on her 
folded arms, and looked in the direction of the stream, 
and thought perhaps he is already far, far away, there 
whither the Rhine, too, is hastening; and she meant at 
evening, when she could be alone, to look down thither 
again, and think of him. 

What a festal day awaited her as she descended into 
the house. No housekeeping for her to-day, no room to 
put to rights, no coffee to prepare. She was the honored 
one of the whole household. While the sun soared so 
majestically on high, while the sky looked so festally, did 
not nature seem to present herself in holiday dress for 
her especial honor? And when the bells chimed, as her 
mother, with tears in her eyes, and her father, in his 
black gown, stepped up to meet her, she could not but 
feel: “Oh, thou beneficent God, how dear must all men 
be to thee, when thou thinkest an insignificant child like 
me worthy of so much honor !” 

They all walked towards the church together ; the 
father in front ; mother and daughter followed him; and 
behind came John, who morose, and in a stiff white cra- 
vat, could scarcely see his way ; and Andrew, who had 
succeeded, by the aid of chalk and the greatest toil, in 
renewing his toilet. 

Martha bestowed her greetings frankly and kindly on 
all around, although, as the eldest of the candidates for 
confirmation, a certain condescension was becoming in 
her. She felt so truly happy in her dignity, when taking 


FORGET ME NOT. 


51 


her place as first, close beside the altar, with her new- 
white dress richer and more plaited than the others— her 
pink belt,the fresh flowers at her bosom (she could never 
wear flowers till now), in fine, with that consciousness so 
far above all vanity, that the inner was in harmony with 
the outer. Pure, festal, maidenly, bride-like even — for 
her father had styled her a bride who stepped to the altar 
to be affianced to the Lord — all was mingled in her, in a 
truly harmonious serenity, as much heavenly as of earth. 

Something, however, on a sudden, startled her. It 
was but a look that met her ; a bold, longing look — a 
look from the man on whom she had bestowed last eve- 
ning, her first womanly favor, believing that she saw him 
for the last time. But he was still here ; perhaps en- 
ticed by that freedom — perhaps come to claim the rights 
he thought it had secured him. 

Just as the long-drawn, tedious church-singing often 
gives an opportunity for many a picture to step forth 
out of the letters of the psalm-book, it had now inveigled 
her into regarding herself as a bride — an earthly bride. 

The bride of whom ?” she asked herself, but could not 
answer the question. She knew no one as whose bride 
she either could or ought to think of herself. But the 
image of Werner again rises before her soul, while her 
finger is tracing the cross upon her brow ; and, at the 
instant when she detects herself in this inattention, and 
tries to chasten her imagination back within its bounds, 
his gaze pierces her ; and with it, a horror at the conse- 
quences his appearance suggests, and that rise swelling 
over her rapidly as a train of thought. 

When she seeks to escape from this shock of her de- 
votion, whither can she fly, but to the w^ords of the ser-. 


52 


THE ROSE OP THE PARSONAGE. 


mon which her father is even now beginning from the 
text in Isaiah : “ Woe to them who draw sin like a weak 
thread, for iniquity is then a cart rope.” He spoke of 
purity, of filial love, of obedience, of the lust of the 
heart that struggles to lift itself above God’s command- 
ment, of the duty of men to die wholly to the world, and 
belong wholly to the Lord ; and as she gazed up at those 
beloved features, so reverent, solemn, and haggard, and 
saw him raise his thin, bony hands imploringly to 
heaven, while he looked down upon the young festal 
faces, in the solemn contrast of his black robe, she felt 
tempted to ask herself whether that hatred against sin 
which sparkled from his colorless eyes, and thundered 
from his powerfully raised voice, were not, perhaps, 
meant to touch and crush her above them all. 

“ Give the devil but a finger,” preached the parson, 
“ and thou belongest to him, body and soul. It is the 
very seduction of the tempter’s art, that it begins with 
a flattering trifle — with something seemingly innocent ; 
and, without a pause, whirls its victim into unheard of 
sins. Thou canst not sin once without sinning forever ; 
and the whole human race perished with the first fall. 
The error which leads a maiden down to the very dregs 
of humanity, begins with a glance. It was only a single 
copper too much lost at play, that drove the frivolous 
to robbery and murder. Resist but this first look, then, 
this first false step, and thou art freed from all tempta- 
tion. To God and virtue thy whole existence belongs.” 

Pure tears streamed from her overtasked glistening 
eyes, down her delicate rosy face. Her bosom rose and 
fell stormily, under the fresh nosegay, fragrant with its 
violets and thyme. She wept, yet, mayhap, not from 


FORGET ME NOT. 


53 


contrition — not from penitence for a sin. She wept 
rather, that there must be sin where a heart enjoys its 
own beatings, and an eye its gaze into God’s creation. 
And yet she had to confess to herself: ‘‘ Though there 
were no sin, still, the sin follows after. The form of the 
strange man stands before thee in the church ; thou hast 
enticed him hither, and it is with his glance that tempt- 
ation irresistibly presses on thee. Oh, the father was 
right ; the act was not the sin, but those that follow in an 
unbroken chain on its tracks.” She bowed her head 
humbly before God, and prayed him to free her from these 
unwonted thoughts: but, as she again met that eye pene- 
trating to her very soul, she wept more and more passion- 
ately, and her bosom raged with a storm it had never be- 
fore known. Hitherto, when she had looked down into 
the Rhine — upon its ceaseless waves, she had, perhaps, 
thought that, in her heart, as in its waters, there was 
unending agitation ; and had felt, as she laid her hand 
on her breast, how it beat and beat against it, and had 
smiled with curiosity and wonder too. But to-day, all 
was anguish and sorrow with her, as though a storm 
were brewing over her, and the stream were pressed back 
before its threatenings. Her father’s words pierced her, 
like the lightning’s flash. The rolling organ tones were 
as distant thunder — the song of the congregation as a 
fearful cry of pain. She felt as if the blood were stag- 
nating at her heart, and must sufibcate her. What a 
day was that ! What a consecration day ! 

Yet it was a day like all other days, and, possibly, 
more beautiful than day ever was before. The glorious 
blue sky shone down upon the earth with such a true 
Sunday radiance, the golden sun streamed out over the 
6 


54 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


world SO festively, and with a quiet smile, sent forth its 
greetings on all sides, to the young spring, in her fresh 
green dress. 

Who could doubt God’s goodness on a day like this ? 
All those who had shed copious tears in the church, 
dried their eyes again to drink in this light in full 
draughts. The pious, childlike mind, that, on a Sunday, 
in church, is recalled by the thought of the Eternal, to 
its own transitoriness, and thence to how little it under* 
stands its own being ; not knowing whence it comes and 
whither it shall go, what else has it but tears to return 
for these unanswerable questions ? Yet these tears are 
fortunately but the Sunday’s jewels ; round pearls, that 
roll quickly and light over the cheeks. When an un- 
changed nature, and the accustomed neighbor faces 
come forth to hail the throng as it leaves the church, 
and the daily toil lays its claim to the mind, the soul is 
once more tranquillized, and reposes, secure and peace- 
ful, in the comfort of its earthly circumscription. 

Martha’s devotion was of a different kind. All that 
she had experienced since yesterday, was something 
never before known. Even to-day’s suffering was a new 
one, and one that must make an epoch in her life. Still, 
she grew more composed as she stepped out of the tem- 
ple into the home. Her father’s blessing, at the close 
of the service, had assured her that she was not yet 
given over to temptation, and that her Heavenly Father 
would give her strength, in future, to escape it. In 
proof of her strong purpose, she hurried through the 
churchyard, so that she might not meet Werner ; and 
when she stood inside of the neatly arranged holiday 
sitting-room, it was a real satisfaction to her to ex- 


FORGET ME NOT. 


55 


change a word or two with little Dora, who was helping 
to-daj in the housekeeping, and to talk once more about 
human affairs. She felt as if awaked from a bad dream, 
where all these pangs of conscience had been only a 
nightmare. . She was yet innocent, the world still peace- 
ful, as each had ever been. She could lay her hand 
upon her heart and smile now, as she felt its beating. 

She could not resist a smile, too, as the mocking little 
Dora, who stood looking askance out of the window, 
would make her remarks. “ How comical the lads do 
look, to be sure, with their long coats, and their great 
tall hats. It’s. very clear that they’ll have to grow a 
great deal before they fill either of them up. Give me 
the girls ; there’s always a finished look about them, 
and, in my opinion, the loveliest among them all was a 
certain Miss Martha. There has not been such a special 
beauty confirmed this many a long day. Yes, yes ; 
there was something in waiting so long before you were 
confirmed.” 

Really ashamed, and almost frightened, Martha ven- 
tured to ask her : Rut am I really a beauty ?” And 
when Dora assured her of it, again and again, and de- 
clared that every one, far and near, was talking of it, 
she said, with a troubled air : “ And is it true, then, as 
father says, that it is a great misfortune to a girl to be 
beautiful ?” 

Dora answered a question like this clearly, and with 
real irritation. “ Only think of such a thing, now ! 
Well, indeed ! only let any man say that to my face, I 
don’t care if it were the parson himself; that is just one 
of his notions. As for your father, he may be a very 
learned gentleman in his way, but in what concerns 


56 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


women, he’ll have to begin his studies all over again. 
Why, such an idea is a positive sin. What greater 
blessing can a girl have, I should like to know, than to 
be handsome? Why, beauty is joy for the whole world, 
and one can have everything in the world for beauty 
alone — rank and honors, pearls, gold, and silks.” 

‘‘But you know I don’t value all that in the least.” 

“ But there is something else one can get for beauty 
— a lovely, sensible husband, and happiness and good 
fortune with him, all his life long. Such a man, for in- 
stance, as the stranger, Herr Werner, with his splendid 
eyes, and his magnificent walk, and his elegant conversq.- 
tion. Oh, it wouldn’t be the first time in the world that 
a gentleman has fallen in love with a poor girl for nothing 
else. Some of us must just take what comes; but a par- 
son’s daughter, she can choose for herself. And what 
do you say now? Would you care nothing, too, about 
such a man as that?” 

“Ah! if it were but possible,” answered Martha; and 
then, recollecting herself, continued, with reluctance : 
“ It is really naughty in you, Dora, to talk about such 
things on my solemn consecration day.” 

“Isn’t it, then, a solemn thing what sort of a husband 
a girl gets ? Doesn’t her whole soul’s welfare hang upon 
it ? I tell you, you must begin to think of it, from this 
very day, so that you may lose no time. Trust me, a girl 
like you can’t set her thoughts high enough. True, in- 
deed, beauty alone may bring misfortune; but only one 
thing more is wanted to make it bring good luck — clever- 
ness. Do you understand me ?” 

However remote this chatter was from Martha’s real 
feelings, it had its effect in lightening her heart. The 


FORGET ME NOT. 


57 


sight of Werner, returning with the Ranger’s family 
through the churchyard, dispelled completely the agita- 
tion she had felt in church. He carried a nosegay in 
his buttonhole, and it made her think how she should 
like to see her own there. “The evil has not yet come,” 
she said to herself; “and if some unheard of good for- 
tune should happen, there would surely be no sin in it, 
if it were already kere.” And such tenderness, such 
love towards the whole world overcame her, that she 
must kiss the myrtle-bush in the window, which her 
mother had planted Qn her first birthday, to grow into 
her bridal wreath, and must waft her greeting out to the 
trees and the blue sky. 

“You don’t know me,” said she, looking around. “You 
see me to-day for the first time. To-day I am another 
creature, a new Martha; for am I not consecrated to-day 
to God, who is love ? To-day he has entered my heart, 
and piety, bliss, and joy alone must be its future inmates. 
We shall all now be happy together.” 

With this fulness of emotion, she fell upon her parents’ 
necks as they entered, after an exchange of salutations , 
with their neighbors. 

Alas ! how was she torn from all her heaven ! 

To-day, John, who usually gave her no greeting, 
merely pressed her hand, saying : “ Good-day, sister.” 
Andrew set himself with a familiar smile, to get off a 
long-winded compliment that he had learned by heart. 
Her father had laid aside his robe, and stood rubbing 
his hands, as he always did if he was angry, when he 
tartly questioned her: “The nosegay — what has become 
of the nosegay ?” 

For an instant, Martha did not understand what he 
6 * 


58 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


meant ; her eyes sank to her bodice, and then she was 
stunned by perceiving that her bouquet was not there. 
Her surprise was evident, but her father deemed it a 
deception. Turning passionately towards her, as she 
still persisted in her ignorance of what had become of 
the flowers, he burst out, declaring that he knew all ; he 
knew who" had received the bouquet from her ; he knew 
with whom she had interchanged her love glances yes- 
terday. 

Out of revenge towards Martha and Werner, Andrew 
had jcalled the parson’s attention, after church, to the 
latter, as he picked up her lost bouquet; and had been 
informing him, with seeming kindness, and as if from a 
sense of dignity, of the attention that gentleman had 
shown to his cousin, yesterday. 

Not a single -word of excuse was there to bring about 
an explanation with the enraged parson. “Hardly is she 
conflrmed,” he continued, “when the manners of the 
woman begin. And whence comes that, if not from the 
fine clothes, the tight-fitting dress, and the flowers in the 
hair ?” 

“But shall she wear no flowers in her hair?” exclaimed 
the mother, endeavoring to excuse her. “What sin is 
there in that?” 

“What sin in that?” he retorted. “Have you, then, 
thus understood what I applied to your hearts to-day in 
church ? The flowers, indeed, are no sin ; but beneath 
them lurks the serpent of seduction y- and from the flow- 
ers comes not merely honey, but poison, and that stupe- 
fying fragrance that brings bad dreams. I cannot endure 
these flowers, this hocuspocus, this dress.” 

This he said, growing each moment more angry, and. 


FORGET ME NOT. 


59 


in the height of his rage, thrust over the myrtle-bush 
that stood in the window, and they heard the flowerpot 
crash on the stones outside. 

Mother and daughter both screamed out, for there is 
a superstition that if a myrtle thus planted perishes, the 
maiden for whom it was planted shall wear no bridal 
wreath. 

Grumbling to himself over his irritation, the parson 
strode up and down the room. He felt, possibly, that 
he had gone too far, and yet he did not know how to 
collect himself. Andrew kept blowing his nose, with the 
double object of showing his silk handkerchief and avoid- 
ing the necessity of saying anything. John looked out 
of the window, and, with a hiss, hiss! excited the house- 
dog, who lay on the lookout for cats. The parson re- 
garded him with rage, but said nothing, as otherwise he 
would have applied to himself this contempt in the pre- 
sence of others. 

His wife gazed at him with a sorrow-torn face. Martha 
sat apart on a chair, feeling as if she were crushing to- 
gether inside. A belief, or rather a superstition had 
nestled by her from her very childhood, which embittered 
her joy with wormwood, and gave her pain the severity 
of an inexorable fate ; a belief that, whenever her heart 
swelled into a more unreined joy, some blow must strike 
it, and crush it in upon itself in ruin. From this reason, 
she had always lived bowed in upon herself, and had 
painfully avoided abandoning herself to the impulse of 
her singularly excitable heart. 

To-day, however, she could not resist it. Carried 
away by the solemnity of the day, by the development 
of her own peculiar beauty, the expectancy of that life 


60 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


which smiled towards her, and by the charm that the 
admiration of a first lover — and such a lover, too — could 
not but possess, she had to-day dared, for once, to burst 
forth in the fullest ecstasy of life, and, in return, the 
cold, gloomy destiny was already clutching at her warm 
heart. Never, alas! could she be truly happy. It was 
a fate, whether from God, providence, or fortune, and 
she must bow to it. She did not weep, she did not com- 
plain, hut let her hands sink wearily down, and wished 
that she could lay aside that holiday dress and the pink 
girdle. In the sombre week-day garb, perhaps, she could 
have borne it better ; but why look so festal outside, when 
one dare not be so within ? Ah! the world is not made 
for festal clothes and festal moods. 

And yet, even now, she was ignorant of the fate that 
was hovering over her head. She knew not, really, why 
she had been permitted to have and to wear these holi- 
day garments. She appeared like the lamb that is 
adorned to be sacrificed at the altar. The confirmation- 
day had been appointed by her father as the day of her 
betrothal, and he had already destined her for cousin 
Andrew as a bride. This was the reason why he 
had so long treated his daughter as a child, and so 
long deferred her consecration, that he might not leave 
her a single instant of self-dependence as a maiden ; but, 
so soon as she stepped before the world a woman, might 
decide her life-career, and commit her to a husband’s 
hand. The practical Andrew had long had an eye on 
the beautiful girl, and the couple of thousand crowns 
which the parson would bequeath only to her, and had 
won the old man’s confidence in a high degree. 

The parson saw in him the image of a worthy, virtuous 


FORGET ME NOT. 


61 


man, and had placed his example before his son oftener 
than enough, saying to him: “This person has not been 
at the university, did not get eighty crowns a year cash, 
hut he has learned in his village what was to be learned, 
and how he now puts you to the shame. He is an 
independent man, who can build up his family upon his 
employment ; but as -for you, who either will not or 
cannot fulfil your destiny, don’t you resemble the crip- 
ples and imbeciles that the community has to support?” 
John, it is true, often answered that “perhaps that was 
set in gold and silver, which the boor would throw away 
as a pebble but possibly he did not himself think 
more correctly about it, and he could do nothing but con- 
ceal within him an invincible grudge against his cousin. 

It "was for this end that Andrew had appeared at 
to-day’s celebration in that new wardrobe, that exem- 
plary toilet; but he was forced to wait in vain till 
dinner, during dinner, and after dinner, for the com- 
pletion of the festival. The parson had signified to 
him, some time ago, his appointment of to-day for this 
purpose; but now that it had come, he was so completely 
enveloped in the deep-rooted regularity of his family 
life, that he could scarcely bring himself to so extra- 
ordinary a deed. He stood in such a cold, uncouth 
reserve towards all the members of his family, and they 
to each other, that he did not know how to approach a 
ceremony of festivity and enjoyment with hearty feel- 
ing. This had already embarrassed him before church ; 
but now that he had allowed himself to be carried away 
by his violent anger; now that he observed his daughter 
so reserved, so suffering, so apathetic, and not concealing 
with all her gentleness a certain defiance, as she avoided 


62 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


his eye, it was impossible for him to display to her his 
fatherly solicitude. He could not act the tender father, 
for he had never felt it, and his heart suffered deeply. 
To-day, however, he could not change, and he settled 
into a gloomy dejection. 

These beings took their seats round the dinner-table, 
with becoming dignity, but without a solitary word of 
conversation. Before they rose, they gave thanks to 
God — for what ? They had only had enough to eat. 

After the meal was over, they sat in a circle in just 
the same dignity and just the same silence. Andrew, 
who was the only one who ordinarily knew how to make 
himself agreeable, by telling the women nice little jokes, 
and bringing the parson out over the history of the 
Reformation, w’as mute to-day out of spite. lie saw 
himself disappointed in his expectations, and he took a 
mischievous pleasure in the general tone of constraint. 
The parson’s wife brought in the coffee as soon as pos- 
sible, after putting things to rights, and at length re- 
lieved them from the necessity of this sorrowful com- 
panionship. Lenette, too, came in to carry off Martha 
and Andrew, for a walk by the water, and, at the solici- 
tation of the latter, the parson gave his consent ; for he 
already longed to be kind towards them. He invited his 
nephew, at the same time, in a tone that had more of 
command than entreaty in it, to be his guest again next 
Sunday, and took his leave of him; since he might, when 
the walk was ended, immediately take the road to his 
home, which lay six hours distant. 

Among the company that was waiting for the couple, 
at the end of the churchyard, was Werner. He had 
given the Ranger his fine grayhound, which, among the 


FORGET ME NOT. 


63 


knowing, was worth a little heap of gold; and that 
worthy man felt so delighted with the jovial companion, 
who kept him from perishing of loneliness, that he invited 
him to lodge at his house as long as he chose. The offi- 
cial business Werner had spoken of, must have been less 
weighty than the sojourn was agreeable, for he tarried. 

Andrew never let Martha out of his sight; and it was 
his opinion that she had profited by to-day’s lecture, for 
she did not even look at Werner, almost turned her back 
on him, and showed in her whole bearing an unmistakable 
neglect. Yet the two sexes are created alike, for the 
very end that they may spy out each other’s secrets ; 
and thus, without exchanging a word or a look of under- 
standing, each had divined what was going on in the 
other’s breast. 

A great change had come over Werner, too, since yes- 
terday. Thoughts full of earnestness and poetry had 
subdued him. He belonged to those natures which, more 
than others, are incited, by inclination and capacity, to 
know and sympathize with the other sex. In the ‘‘great 
world” he had spent a large part of his existence, and 
that which would have been perhaps the better part, in 
fathoming and enjoying the female character; and now 
he was forced to confess, here in a village, that its high- 
est, purest, truest enchantment had been hitherto a 
stranger to him. Exactly as he had slighted nature, so 
he considered a young girl as insipid, and 

scarcely worthy of his notice. He had always been 
willing to see in girlishness — that retreating and yet 
suggestive, that self-stilling and yet ardent condition — 
nothing but a mask, worn through education and instinct, 
to conceal want of wit, and the often deeply-rooted de- 


64 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


sire of being provided for. The wife alone bad been 
interesting to him, as an independent woman, an indi- 
viduality that came out to meet him ; and he had sacri- 
ficed to this interest the best homage of his young heart, 
till, deceived and betrayed, he had severed himself, in 
dejection, from all those circles and connections. 

In this dejection, Martha met him ; and now that he 
comprehended her double nature, that modesty and 
frankness, that endurance and that ardor, he saw in it 
the strange treasure of combined womanly charms — a 
girlhood that concealed a rich individual life, a bud that 
must burst into the flower ; and he anticipated in the 
simple exterior the bright blue flowers of romance. He 
detected the fragrance of an unconsciously imperish- 
able life, the protracted dream of a vitality that must 
wake into the genius of a woman’s heart. 

Andrew never moved from Martha’s side, until, under 
one pretence or another, he had returned with her to 
the parsonage. This trouble, however, was scarcely 
needed, for she had kept herself aloof from the stranger 
of her own accord. Lenette came again towards evening 
on the next day, to invite her to walk; but, although it 
was in her power to go, she went not. She felt ill at 
ease ; and had a dread that, if she were again hurled 
back from so much delight to such suffering, she should 
die under it. She made up her mind never to be happy 
any more ; and yet things went no better with her for 
this resolve. It was from the heart that her sorrow 
came, and on the heart body and spirit alike depend. 
The longer she struggled, the harder her struggles were. 

In the hope of cheering her, her mother had hinted 
the father’s solicitude, which sought to establish the hap- 


FORGET ME NOT. 


65 


piness of her life by betrothing her to the distinguished 
Andrew ; but how violently and suddenly her whole 
being was torn apart by the news ! She was firmly 
bound to her parents, if not by love for them — and she 
felt now that it was not true love — at least by obedience, 
esteem, and gratitude; and yet she tore away from them 
every fibre of her heart, which carried in itself her right 
to freedom, and her consciousness of its sensation. Hor- 
rible torment drove her from one extreme to another. 
She felt that if, when she longed to live, to really live, 
she could only do so with this wreck of her nature, she 
would not live. She \vould disclaim everything, and 
brood away her span without love, without hate, in ex- 
istence alone. That, at least, her father could not deny 
her ; he could never compel her to love a hateful hus- 
band ; and, if she should wear away her life in nun-like 
seclusion, was not that the truest fulfilment of her own 
principle ? 

She tried in this way to exterminate all happiness 
within, and a deep melancholy was all that occasionally, 
from a faint sensation of life, flickered feebly upon her, 
like an expiring flame. She took the myrtle-bush, whose 
stem had been severed by its fall from the window, and 
wove herself a garland of its twigs, and kissed it tear- 
lessly ; and, as she retired to her rest, placed it on her 
head, and thought of herself lying thus a corpse in her 
coffin. 

She was holding the wreath again in her hand, and 
feeling a weariness that she thought eternal rest alone 
could refresh, as Lenette, on Sunday afternoon, came 
into her room, and implored her, with all the earnestness 
she possessed, to go with them to the Beechwood. She 
7 


66 


THE ROSE OP THE PARSONAGE. 


told Martha that they were going to walk there with her 
mother, and their guest, who was the most delightful man 
she had ever known. “He has decided to leave to- 
morrow,” said she, and longs to see you once more, if 
only to find out whether you are still angry with him. 
He has promised that he will be as lively to-day as a 
bird in the wood, if you will only join in the walk ; and 
we shall all be so, too.” 

How could Martha resist ! She felt as though a cry 
of joy must have escaped her heart, and as if some lit- 
tle captive bird within her soul were beating its wings 
against its prison bars, as it saw its sisters winging their 
way to their distant home. Her longing for happiness, 
now once more drove through her with the same im- 
petuosity with which her sorrow had surged. “ Because 
I cannot be happy all my life,” she said to herself, 
“ shall I not enjoy this single hour ? Once more, only 
one last time, I will know what unchecked enjoyment is, 
and then bid good-by to happiness forever.” 

She went with them. 

Still higher up the mountains led the path thither 
where the sun has no longer power to create the wine, 
where noble forests fill the valleys with misty shadow, 
and raise themselves upon the heights in boundless per- 
spective. It was just the spot you would have chosen 
for your encampment after a toilless walk. Werner 
playfully styled the party a brigand band. “ Free is 
the life Ave lead,” he sang, and he spread out his tent as 
he hung the girls’ large shawls from the drooping 
branches of a mighty oak, against the setting sun. 
Lenette and her mother produced from their reticules 
bread and some cold roast game; a couple of flasks of 


FORGET ME NOT. 


67 


•wine, too, made their appearance, and the genuine ban- 
dit life began. 

Werner styled himself the captain, and the damsels 
waylaid maidens; whom yet, like the true robber of ro- 
mance, he sought to win over, by his gallantry, to him- 
self and his nomad life. He broke twigs from the trees, 
and set them with fantastic grace upon their heads. 
Lenette was the bandit mother of the party, and busied 
herself in cutting bread with a huge hunting-knife, 
while she ordered Martha to crown their captain in his 
turn. Martha refused, for she was not yet freed from 
the sadness that weighed her down; but when Lenette 
exclaimed: “To-day, everything is allowable,” she re- 
plied: “ Yes, but only for to-day;” springing at the 
same time suddenly away, and searching long among 
the prettiest boughs. It seemed that she would never 
find one handsome enough, for at last seizing an ivy 
branch — an evergreen, as Lenette remarked — she wound 
it around Werner’s handsome brow. 

He kissed the hand that struggled vainly against him, 
and not without tenderness. Then he observed that a 
splinter had torn her finger ; he drew it out with his 
teeth, and again and again kissed with transport the 
little hand, soft as a lily leaf. A delicate purple glow- 
ed over Martha’s cheeks, as when a white rose reddens 
at the sun; while Werner, suddenly raising his voice, 
poured out of his deep chest, with a tone louder than 
the rest had ever heard from him, louder than he had 
ever heard from himself: — 

What nerves my arm and fires my soul 
Dreads not a mortal’s might. 

What steels my heart when dangers roll ? 

’Tis love — 


68 


THE EOSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


A quivering joy ran through Martha’s frame, and 
looked out from her moist, lustrous eye. Dreamily 
thoughtful, she sat under the fragrant foliage where the 
rich crimson of the evening sun fell like dew upon her — 
upon this blue flower of romance. Werner was intoxi- 
cated with the air, the spot, the wine, and Martha’s 
beauty. He threw himself at her feet, hung upon her 
look, snatched from her hand the cup as it went its 
round, that he might kiss the rim she had touched, and 
sip the drop pressed back by her lip. Again he shouted 
out his exulting melodies — 

“ My life’s career is love and joy 
And the loud resounding song.” 

And many another, which disclosed widely the realm 
of the German popular mind. ' 

Little could he have anticipated the mystery of dis- 
carded sorrow and rising love that was tranquillizing 
Martha’s gaze. She looked enviously, longingly, won- 
dering at the man who carried in his bosom such a ful- 
ness of blissful poetical emotions. She regarded him 
with an all but suffocating breathlessness; terrified, yet 
full of love, as he continued: — 

“ Oh ! thou German life in German song, where hast 
thou fled? Where can one find you now integrity, can- 
dor, affection ? Where is that noble fierceness of the 
chase, that daring of adventure, that majesty of sweet 
love ? Our whole life is a hunt, indeed, yet it is not 
where we hunt, but where we are hunted. We think to 
chase the devil out of the world, and yet it is he who is 
driving us through it. And what is the cause of all 
this, if it be not that the great mass of the people has. 


FORGET ME NOT. 


69 


in senseless envy, torn from the prominent part of their 
nation, from that nobility of real dignity, its privileges 
and the ornaments of its illustrious existence; 'and be- 
cause it knew not how to wear them itself, has hurled 
them into the mud. Equal, indeed, do we all move 
here, and equally ignoble. Even the reflection of an 
earlier education has faded from the mass. Did you 
ever hear the story of poor Schmul, who ran from street 
to street, day in and day out, from morning till night, 
to earn his scrap of bread; and how, when he ventured 
home, wearied to death, and rested by the comfortable 
stove, his old wife would cry out to him: ‘Speculate, 
Schmul! Schmul, I say, speculate.’ And poor Schmul 
would rub his eyes and speculate. That is in truth the 
exact history of the world — speculate Schmul. Have you 
nothing ? speculate to stave off* hunger. Have you 
anything? speculate to keep it. Fortune, glory, honor, 
love — you shall not win these by noble character, by a 
great deed, by heroic enthusiasm. No, speculate is the 
word everywhere. Yes, and love, too. Does, then, 
that passion any longer exist, that breathes on us from 
the love-songs of the Minnesingers like the dream of a 
lost paradise? What is love but the charitable retreat 
for one-half the world? Where is love any longer dis- 
interested? Where is mere personal worth beloved? 
Where has love, nowadays, that godlike passion, which 
asks only what is in itself right; that unwavering con- 
sciousness of truth which is the only anchor of deliver- 
ance in the common shipwreck of time ! Even here, 
would you win love, speculate is your motto. And would 
you preserve her, speculate night and day. Bah ! I 
wish I were a real merchant, who understands this spe- 
7 * 


70 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


culation, or a bandit who seizes what one does not give 
him, as for instance — ” 

On the moment he seized Martha’s hand, and his bold 
watchful look showed her that he meditated some sur- 
prise. She fixed on him a look half comical, half dis- 
dainful, sprang upon her feet, and fled. He followed 
her. 

She hurried down the descent to the level ground 
which lay below, already in foggy shadow; while its 
edge above gleamed in the streaming sun rays. 

This slope of the mountain was planted with the 
young growth of the forest, and mingled together, here 
the different fragrant firs ; yonder, the beeches ; below, 
the willow bushes. Quick as an arrow, Martha shoots 
down the little footpath; lithe as a weasel, she glides 
through the openings, but she has lost her way in the 
bushes, and already hears her pursuer close behind. 
Not a second does she linger, but presses still deeper 
into the thicket. Laboriously, but without a pause, re- 
gardless of the shadows that are already gathering be- 
fore her, she has hurried rapidly through; but now 
something seizes her by the hair, and holds her fast. 
She utters a cry of dismay, and things begins to grow 
gloomy around her — for her luxuriant knot of hair 
hangs clinging on a withered limb. She tears at it 
with passionate pain, but cannot free it. Werner has 
reached her, and in agonized impetuosity she shouts 
aloud. 

He released her from the bough, and in doing so a 
part of the knot loosed itself, and the rich blond hair 
gushed in a golden stream over her face and neck. 
With a tone free from that levity that had been hitherto 


FORGET ME NOT. 


71 


almost unconsciously his companion ; with a tone even 
of the deepest inward rapture he exclaimed : ‘‘ Lovely, 
lovely, are you thus ? Oh, the sweet Rhine-nymph’s 
tresses !” and WTeathing his hand in the full ringlets, he 
kissed her again and again as she bent her face now 
forward, now behind. Yet the girl still struggled with 
him, and they heard Lenette coming up. With a spring 
she freed herself ; and again, as if it were her nature, 
slipped like a doe through the resisting branches. 

He can scarcely follow her, hut at last they both 
reach the steep declivity of a rock. A tree separated 
them with its wide-spreading roots — Werner sprang 
down and stood on the yielding sod at the bottom of the 
descent. Martha hesitated at so deep a jump, but 
nerved herself, and he caught her in his arms. 

He presses her to his breast. She resists no more. 
Her bosom heaves tumultuously, half frightened, half 
drunken, is her look. With a passionate grasp she 
seizes her hair and looses its remaining clusters. He 
covers her face with kisses, and she suffers it. But 
they again hear Lenette calling to them : ‘‘ Where are 
you ?” A beautiful forget-me-not lies at Werner’s feet, 
he plucks it an4 places it on Martha’s bosom. She tears 
it from its shelter, and casts it from her ; then with a 
passionate emotion, clings one instant round his neck, 
gasps out, “An eternal farewell;” and asks Lenette, 
who has come up, to arrange her hair that the bushes 
had disordered. 

And Martha left the church next day with strength- 
ened heart, and courage to carry through her resolve. 
But what has come over the father ? 

He stroked her hair, called her his own, his obedient 


72 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


child. You would not have recognized him as he said : 
“ I love you ; I have always loved you, and I wdll ever 
care for you.” Tears filled his eyes, and he continued as 
if he were in the pulpit : “ And I must thank thee, my 
God, that .thou hast allowed me to guide my child in 
happiness hither, and hast crowned my efforts with this 
day’s resolve. Henceforth her life’s bark is moored in 
a sheltering haven. Yes, my daughter, this is the day 
that founds the edifice of thy lifelong happiness ; this 
thy honored husband here shall build it. In the name 
of my Heavenly Father, I betroth thee to thy cousin. 
Give each other your hands. Receive my blessing.” 

Martha was unconscious of what had passed over her. 
What had they been doing with her ? She looked around 
to see if no one, mother, or brother, would interpose a 
single question; but all were silent. Her breath seemed 
to be stilling her in this ceremonial quiet. She has no 
one now left but God to think on — but he does nothing; 
no .interruption, no miracle interferes. Her father pro- 
nounced his blessing, but she did not hear a single word. 
He joined their hands, and as Andrew’s cold hand 
grasped hers so firmly, an irrepressible shudder ran 
through her body and soul. She felt ^he spasm again 
at her heart. 

Involuntarily she tore her hand away to press it 
there. Her gaze sweeps round in the feeling of ap- 
proaching faintness, and a fearful image, reality or phan- 
tom, she can scarcely say which, presents itself to her 
sight. She utters a piercing cry, and, blending to- 
gether the collected sufferings of her now ruined life, 
she faltered out, “Misery, misery!” 

And it was no phantom. She had seen through the 


FORGET ME NOT. 


73 


■window a blood-stained corpse-pale man, borne across 
the churchyard, and that man was Werner. The sexton 
and his lad were carrying him into the parsonage. They 
had seen him fall from the white stone cross, and taken 
him up from the abyss for dead. 

The parson recognized the stranger who had worn his 
daughter’s nosegay, but in such a danger as this, he 
knew no retrospection. Help must be obtained, and 
that quickly. With rapid foresight, he sends Andrew 
and John for the physician ; the grave-digger to bring 
the surgeon; the mother to provide fresh water ; while 
he goes himself to the family dispensary. 

Martha was left alone with the dead. He was placed 
in an arm-chair, his blood-streaked head pale as death, 
the nosegay of her confirmation day upon his breast, 
withered and bedewed with his own blood. Her pain 
was forgotten ; she thought no more of what had hap- 
pened to her ; she belonged no longer to herself. The 
loss of this being, showed her what his life had been to 
her. A passion, an all-forgetting, all-subduing passion 
hurried her towards him. She sank at his feet, she 
kissed him, she called him by his name, and addressed 
him with every endearment. He opened his eyes. 
‘‘Not dead,” she cried aloud with joy. 

“No, not dead; he lives for thee.” 

This Werner said, rising quickly and firmly up, and 
clasping her to him with a strong arm. 

“Fear not,” he continued with a smile, while a cold 
shudder ran over her : “ I am not hurt, it was no acci- 
dent ; it was design — dissimulation. I threw myself 
from the rock, that I might be brought here.” 

Martha sprang from him. Pale fright was in her 


74 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


look. She tried to escape, but he held her by the hand 
so gently, yet so firmly ; he kissed her arm so sweetly — 
so coaxingly. 

“It is for your sake,” said he, “ I am here ; do not 
betray me. It is for your sake — I can do all for you.” 

“Never, never! A crime! Shall I lie?” exclaimed 
Martha in agony, and struggled from him. As she did 
so, her father entered the room. 

“How is he?” he asked; “has he waked up? I 
thought I heard him speaking. What does he say? 
How is he ?” 

“ I don’t know, father,” answered Martha, trembling; 
“No, no — he did not wake ; he is, perhaps — dead.” 

The falsehood was over, and she stood in an under- 
standing with the man who had fraudulently sneaked 
into her dwelling. 

“ God of heaven !” she cried out. 

Her father stared at her. 

She collected herself. “ I am afraid that I cannot 
bear the sight of blood,” she lisped ; and, clasping her 
hands before her eyes, rushed out of the room, up to her 
chamber, to be alone with her grief. 


A STONE HOUSE. 


75 


r 


CHAPTER IV. 

A STONE HOUSE. 

The parsonage was an addition to the church. It 
was built in the same ancient style, venerable, solemn, 
massive, but dismal, uninhabitable looking, cold and 
dark. The building contained one large entrance hall, 
a large room, and a great kitchen ; and beside these, 
scarce anything but chambers, which were huddled 
alongside and on top of each other, as necessity or op- 
portunity prompted, with a want of design truly medi- 
aeval, and were of different styles of architecture, and 
now of wood, now of stone. The large sittingr-oom 
between the thick, arched walls, was so cool, that even 
in the heat of summer, you could see your breath in it. 
The light fell with a disagreeable glare through a high, 
narrow window, upon simply white-washed walls, and 
yet scantily enough, too. Formerly, some large lindens 
in front, formed a natural screen, and spread a gloomy 
obscurity over the room ; but the present parson, partly 
for health’s sake, and partly for economy, had cut them 
down. 

The internal arrangement was in harmony with the 
building itself. There was nothing in the sitting-room 
but a large table in the middle of the floor, and against 
the four walls, a sideboard, the parson’s writing-desk 


76 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


with his arm-chair, a hard sofa, and a couple of chairs. 
This furniture was of old black walnut. It was straight 
up and down, and without the least ornament; highly 
durable, and in its day, even costly ; but in it, as 
throughout the entire arrangement necessity alone was 
consulted, but neither beauty, grace, nor comfort, in the 
most distant degree. No cupboard was there with its 
dilferent birthday cups, no flower-vases, no picture, no 
comfortable settee. There was one solitary article of 
luxury, a mirror ; but this hung so high, and at such an 
angle, that you grew dizzy if you looked in it. 

The life within, too, was like the house. Existence 
here was solemn earnest, full of dignity ; but monoto- 
nous, constrained, and joyless. The first time that 
Werner had seen the parson in church, and had noticed 
that expressive high-priestly form, that moral earnest- 
ness, so assured and tranquil in itself, he had appeared, 
in his own eyes, as vain and fickle as. the weathercock 
on the church tower. But it was not his habit to be 
kept in awe for any length of time; and, now that he had 
a near view of the parson in his own house, it was not 
hard for him to detect, with sufficient clearness, the 
quaint, and even comic side. 

Any one who, like himself, had long stood firmly, in 
the very centre of life, would ill know the extent of his 
indebtedness to life, as well as what man is, in his iso- 
lation. Parson Wendelin was exactly what any man 
may become who lives away from society, and in the 
strictest seclusion. Painfully timid towards the world 
and the future, he was yet immeasurably overbearing 
towards the circle with which he stood in contact. He 
recognized no right in others, and no duty in himself. 


A STONE HOUSE. 


77 


to impose restraint upon him. Incapable of tolerating 
the least complaint in others, he knew not how to con- 
fine the feeling of his own annoyances to himself. The 
consciousness of his authority was so inrooted, that he 
allowed nothing to take place in the family without his 
order ; and thought to regulate the inner as well as 
outer life of his wife and daughter, like a piece of clock- 
work. When his words did not command, his looks did. 
No one took his seat at table of his own accord ; no one 
placed a chair in its place without his order, or the 
overseeing pursuit of his eye. Nothing went on in the 
humble domestic arrangements without his consent ; no 
potato reached the pot, no egg the larder, that he did 
not know of it. Yet the sense of his dignity, all the 
while, forbade him to speak of such unimportant matters, 
and he uttered his decisive commands only in short, 
broken sentences. Spiritual affairs belonged, in his 
opinion, to the pulpit and his profession, so that they 
afforded no material for social conversation, unless when 
he fell into a dispute with his son ; and even that pro- 
duced no exchange of ideas, no harmonizing of opinions; 
for the parson, both as parson and as father, must be 
right; and the first few words usually separated them, 
in the angry consciousness of irreconcilable differences. 

The family sat together, almost always, in silence; or 
the parson would walk, with gloomy look, up and down 
the room, on his accustomed floor plank, humming to 
himself some church tune. If his wife, who was always 
only too glad to chat about anything, said a word about 
some neighbor’s family, the old man would cut her short 
with a harsh rebuke against them. No man was right 
in his eyes; and, in order to indulge his contempt, he 
8 


78 


THE KOSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


felt bound to censure everybody, though it were only 
for wearing his clothes differently. If anybody wore 
his coat shorter than the parson’s, he was a coxcomb — 
if he wore it longer, he was a boor and a pedant. He 
seemed blind to the fact that he often blamed others 
for the very faults he must acknowledge in himself ; but 
then, these peculiarities were apparently very different 
in him, the parson; and one thing was, at any rate, cer- 
tain, viz : that everybody else deserved his contempt, 
for the very reason that he was somebody else. 

He extended this undervaluation even to his own 
children, and had always regarded them as creatures at 
bottom abject ; and who carried within them only a 
capacity for being ruined, but not a single germ of indi- 
vidual worth. He intended to guard them from evil by 
his own stern propriety alone; and hence his constant 
dread for the future, and his ever-present solicitude. 
“What will come of it? What will come of it?” he 
asked himself, when his son, the theologian, broke away 
from the strictest orthodoxy; and again, when he sought 
a deeper foundation for himself. “ What will come of 
it?” was his inward lamentation, when Martha looked 
gay in a new dress, over a bird, or a flower. 

The haughty Parson Wendelin had thus become that 
caricature of a man which one grows into when he re- 
fuses to recognize the value of human society; a nig- 
gard, who misses every piece of bread that is eaten ; an 
eccentric, who attaches no value to reciprocity, gives 
and receives no birthday gift; an enemy of his kind, 
who harasses himself to seize life by its darkest side; 
who acknowledges no joys, no gladdening customs, no 
family festivals ; but life’s harshest necessities alone. 


A STONE HOUSE. 


79 


Yet these seemed to be, after all, not merely the oddities 
of the man; for he often suffered a deep, yes, an unfathom- 
able background to it all to show through. Behind the 
dogmatic exterior, there shone at such times opinions, 
deep foundations. He busied himself in silence over 
the philosophical contradictions of Epicureanism and 
Stoicism, and in truth gave the preference to the latter. 
Cicero and Seneca, as well as the writers of the Christ- 
ian ascetic theory, especially Thomas ^ Kempis, were 
his darling authors, and a vindication of Diogenes was 
an idea that had long possessed him. When he had pre- 
pared his son for the University, these were the contem- 
plations to which he especially consecrated him ; and as 
he sent him forth from his home, he condensed them on 
a memorandum leaf. 

The only happiness,” said he, among other things, 
‘‘is virtue; but virtue is that rigor of the soul, which, 
through every changing condition of the world, recog- 
nizes in its own sensitiveness, in its feeling, its compre- 
hension of itself; its own changeless, immovable, self- 
reposing power. Continue unmoved by the world, from 
which I have held thee far off ; keep fast that eternal 
equanimity, that apathy, by which the sages of antiquity 
overcame the world, and_thou wilt remain on the path 
to God. Think ever on this — that all pleasure is a 
slacking of thy soul’s energy. Well-being, riches, pros- 
perity, glory, learning, love — prize them not too highly; 
flee them, rather than pursue them. These treasures of 
the world are not in themselves bad, yet, because they 
can guide to evil as to good, they are baneful. On this 
account renounce them, abstain from them at the out- 
start, without ever tasting them. We do not miss an 


80 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


enjoyment of -whicli we have no knowledge. Seek out 
for thyself the tub of Diogenes ; that narrow circle of 
existence, wherein thou livest in thyself, unruffled by the 
turmoil of the world. But think not that, because thou 
hast performed one duty, thou mayest forbear another. 
There is but one virtue — virtue in its highest signifi- 
cance, neither more nor less — and it has no grades. Thou 
must be either wholly good, or wholly evil; but the 
nature of man’s heart is evil from his youth, as the 
scripture saith : ‘ Wherefore, seek to destroy it ; and its 
death shall prove the life of thy soul.’ ” 

These principles in the parson were more than the 
accidental reminiscences of a one-sided classic educa- 
tion ; he had selected them from the treasury of know- 
ledge as a shield and weapons against the times in which 
he lived, as a talisman against the more and more widely 
stretching direction of an analytic and limitless en- 
lightenment. He perceived no law, and recognized no 
benefit, in the growing vindication of the individual. In 
the spread of knowledge, he saw the downfall of morals ; 
and in the consciousness of rights, the neglect of duties. 
Against a freedom which degenerated into license, a 
dream of happiness which tended to a thirst for plea- 
sure ; against the unboundedness of a thought that 
threatened in its pauseless career to storm forth in mad 
destruction of morals, state, religion, and every sacred 
thing, he perceived no deliverance but in subjection to 
authority, and the crushing of human self-will. 

A deep foundation must have been laid in his charac- 
ter, to make him pursue with such iron consistency, such 
embittered hate, every motion of an independent 
nature, every inclination towards the distant and the 


A STONE HOUSE. 


81 


strange — -whetlier that foundation lay in a remorse of 
his conscience, as the common people believed, or in 
some personal experience that had given his nature this 
rugged turn. Often, when you saw him stop abruptly 
in his humming walk up and down the room, and seem- 
ingly sink deep in thoughtful reflection, you could not 
but feel a sympathy with this strangely reserved 
character. 

Even Werner himself was not always free from such an 
impression. He could not in particular accustom him- 
self to the parson’s large, gloomy-looking, pale gray 
eyes. He had not wondered at them in church, “for 
here,” thought he, “ perhaps the comedy is played with 
such things;” but in life, and every-day life, to see these 
eyes, even with the dressing-gown and slippers, seemed 
awful to him. 

In truth, the parson had sufficient cause to regard his 
guest with a sharp eye ; for he could see on his bosom 
the hateful nosegay that had excited all his suspicions, 
and all his apprehensions. 

Still, it was impossible to deny the unfortunate man 
his hospitality. The surgeon who had been summoned 
had been bribed by Werner, with a jest and a present, 
to declare that his patient had dislocated a hip, and 
must not on any account be moved from the house ; and 
after a disclosure like this, Werner felt him much safer, 
and more tranquil on the subject of the parson. “The 
adventure must take its course,” thought he; “the jest 
was not so ill devised, and occurs in novels often enough ; 
it happens in life, to be sure, more seldom, and in this 
situation is undeniably a novelty.” 

Werner had to answer the parson’s personal questions 
8 * 


82 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


like a culprit; and he represented himself as a young 
officer of government, who was making a pedestrian ex- 
cursion for his amusement. 

A look of most entire contempt quickly followed these 
words. “ Travelling for your amusement !” retorted the 
parson, in his fault-finding tone: “Behold the conse- 
quence; here must you lie now at least two or three 
days, and all that time you are lost to your career.” 

Werner had prearranged no plan from his adventure, 
but that one could be cured of a dislocated hip in three 
days, seemed to him a supposition of very little promise 
for the duration of his stay. 

“Already provided for?” was the parson’s next query. 

“ I have a moderate income,” Werner replied; and 
Wendelin turned an expressive look at John, who sat 
in a corner rubbing his hair, and seemed not to perceive 
the glance. 

“He is already thirty years old,” said the old man, 
this time full of meaning. ' 

“And seven wrecks,” added John. 

“Yet he has never accomplished anything,” continued 
the parson. 

“ Which you will hear ninety times in the three days 
you are with us,” grumbled the other, without changing 
his certainly not very elegant attitude. 

“ He cannot deliver a sermon without sticking fast, 
despite all his high studies.” 

“Which at least furnishes stuff for household talk,” 
tacked on John, as before — “you would not find another 
in a year.” 

“ Is your son a theologian ?” asked Werner. 

“ He ought to be,” was the old man’s reply. 


A STONE HOUSE. 


83 


The conversation here broke off abruptly, and Wende- 
lin evidently intended to let himself go no further. 
Werner, who had observed his contemptuous smile at the 
expression travelling for pleasure,” thought he might 
produce a favorable impression ; and as he had heard at 
the Ranger’s something of the parson’s stoicism, he 
brought out his school learning and began : — 

“Travelling is my highest enjoyment; understand 
me, I mean enjoyment in its noblest sense, in the con- 
ception of Epicurus himself, who says : ‘ Without a 
happy life there is no virtue, and without virtue no 
happy life.’ It is not that momentary pleasure which 
Aristarchus makes an object of human struggles, but 
that system of pleasure, to express myself in the words 
of Cicero — happiness as an enduring condition of col- 
lective life. This true pleasure is an object of calcu- 
lation and weight ; it demands the continued activity of 
reason, and of moral purpose. Yes, I have busied my- 
self a good deal with these philosophic systems, and 
with what result ? Don’t you think, Herr Parson, that 
this balance of enjoyment, alike remote from thirst for 
pleasure and from mortification, is the true aim of all 
philosophy wdiich concerns itself with life?” 

Werner was forced to smile himself, at this pedantic 
exposition of things that were commonly indifferent to 
him ; but he erred if he thought that he had caught the 
old man. Wendelin merely replied : “ You said Aris- 
tarchus ; you meant, probably, Aristippus.” 

John, on the contrary, seemed inclined to enter into 
conversation. “ There is but one contentment,” said he, 
with the suppressed tone peculiar to him, and that 
seemed to struggle in vain to express the fulness of his 


84 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


thought — ‘‘ and that contentment is the only virtue. 
What are good and evil ? There is no poison in nature, 
no sin in God. That is good which is useful, and that 
is useful which leads us to greater reality, while our 
true reality is to know. Knowledge is the only good. 
There is but one virtue, the virtue of the soul. Have 
you read Spinoza ?” 

‘‘Who would not know Spinoza?” exclaimed Werner, 
although he knew nothing about him. But Wendelin cut 
short the conversation, turning to his son, with an ex- 
cited “ Silence ! not a word about Spinoza.” 

John observed an angry silence. A pause intervened, 
and the parson walked with large strides up and down 
his favorite plank, not altogether free himself from 
passion. He looked at John, who, in his down-sunken 
attitude, gazed staringly before him, and then, as if 
calling the stranger to witness, burst out; “Aha! look 
now at this youth ; feeble, morose, without vitality or 
joy. What sort of a face is that? Can any one help 
fearing how that will turn out ? What will come of it — 
what will come of it?” 

Father and son looked at each other with flaming eyes 
and angry mien, which, from their family resemblance, 
produced a shocking elfect. Werner could scarcely make 
up his mind at which of the two he felt the less awe. 

“ To the glass, father, dear 1 Who makes the better 
faces, you or I ?” Thus the son stormed out. The un- 
wonted presence of a stranger had waked the feeling of 
self in him, and let loose his long-repressed bitterness. 
Again master of himself, he smiled scornfully in his 
father’s face. “Parental love! — ha, ha ! This is do- 
mestic life; yes, yes, sir,” said he, turning to the stran- 


A STONE HOUSE. 


85 


ger ; “ thus it is every day, year in and year out. Huzza ! 
a jolly life is the parsonage life.” And with fiendish 
gestures he burst out of the door. 

The parson clenched his fists together, looked staringly 
after his son, and of a sudden began singing “Jesus, my 
trust,” and walked peacefully up and down the room. 

But what a dear, good woman was that wife of his, 
who was taking such an interest in the seeming invalid. 
She had evidently been created expressly for a sick 
nurse. Again and again she would feel the patient’s 
pulse, or see if his brow were not too hot. She could 
never step about lightly enough, never beckon to others 
carefully enough. “Gently, dear! gently, dear!” was 
the way she always spoke ; and her tender nature could 
never find expression tender enough. Every word in her 
mouth became an endearing diminutive. 

There was no end to the cooling, strengthening, heal- 
ing prescriptions that she knew of for her guest ; but, 
unfortunately, at every fresh one she forgot, as was her 
constant practice, to carry out the previous one; so that 
the pampered patient derived but little benefit from her 
good intentions. Under the circumstances, it must be 
confessed that this was in accordance with his wish. She 
was so universally kind, the dear woman, that there was 
no more room in her for prudence, activity, or reflection. 
She had the best wishes for everybody, but never suc- 
ceeded in accomplishing them. She could not even 
regulate her little housekeeping, and the parson’s over- 
sight was not altogether superfluous. The disunion in 
the family pained her deeply, yet she had not the energy 
to do the least thing towards harmonizing it; her kind- 


86 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


ness was of no value, and only served gradually to wear 
her out. 

As she sat drinking her coffee with Werner and her 
husband, she began to talk with the latter, a thing that, 
on Sundays, he thought he could not forbid her; but her 
life was so meagre, that the most trivial matters had to 
furnish out her conversation. Who had wished her good- 
day ; how she had replied ; whether this or that person 
had listened to the sermon; how often her neighbor had 
sneezed in church, and she had bowed to him every time; 
all this she told off to-day, as she did every Sunday and 
holiday, in circumstantial breadth. 

And it was just as distasteful to the parson to-day as 
it was every Sunday and holiday. He swallowed his 
coffee hastily, seized his stick, and went out for his daily 
walk in the fields. 

The good wife now sat herself beside the friendly in- 
valid, poured out a fresh cup for him and for herself, and 
felt rejoiced that for once she had some one to chatter 
at to her heart’s content; for chattering was her passion, 
perhaps the one passion of her life, and it weighed heavy 
on her heart that she had to repress it. It was this that 
had planted in her bosom such a deep longing for the 
home of her youth. 

She was now seated by the stranger, brimful of curi- 
osity to find out who he was; what was his family; whe- 
ther he had a father, mother, brothers, and sisters ; but 
she had barely put her first questions, when she was so 
immersed in talk, that restraint was no longer practi- 
cable. Once come to words, she made her darling an- 
nouncement full and at large — one that for many a year 
had been repeated in just the same words — that she was 


A STONE HOUSE. 


8T 


not born on the Rhine, but near the great sea, whence 
her father, who was himself a clergyman, had emigrated 
to this spot. She painted to Werner the homesickness 
that for more than thirty years had continually impelled 
her thither. She thought that one could be happy only 
there, and that heaven and nature were beautiful there 
alone. All this woman’s thoughts were swallowed up in 
the longing for the past, exactly as her husband’s were 
in apprehension for the future; and neither one of them 
knew any pleasure in the present, any comfort in the 
existence that was passing along. What he suffered to 
escape him in his morose breedings, she lost in dreamy 
wandering. When her husband had allowed her, after 
unutterable entreaties and complaints, to visit her home 
ten years ago, she had found the little town changed, 
the weather bad, her acquaintance dead or gone across 
the w^ater, and had come back more wretched than she 
went. Still, the desire was not quieted. Her belief now 
was that she ought to go there in winter. In winter, she 
thought that every one would be cozily gathered around 
the spinning-wheel, near the warm stove, and would be 
talking without end about their neighbors and distant 
countries. To make a winter journey to the North was 
now her ardent, life-consuming desire. 

Bright tears stood in her eyes as she spoke of it; but 
she also said that she should never allude to it again 
before her husband. It had made him angry once, and 
her only wish should rather be buried in her than that 
she would cause him pain. Werner was touched, and 
stretched out his hand to her, exclaiming: “You are a 
noble woman.” 

These words moved the parson’s wife so deeply that 


88 


THE ROSE OF TEE PARSONAGE. 


she fell to sobbing, and continued till the parson’s return, 
late in the evening, weeping over the emotion she felt at 
any one’s saying to her, ‘‘You are a noble woman.” 

When Wendelin entered, supper stood on the table, 
according to the house rule. It consisted of curds, 
bread and butter, and cheese. John did not come, al- 
though he had been called ; and Martha sent word that 
she was unwell, and stayed in her own room. Every one 
offered a silent prayer before they sat down, but at table 
no one exchanged a word ; yet they ate their meal with 
a certain tranquillity and a feeling of comfort. 

The parson had at least one agreeable side, and that 
was the economy and minuteness with which he allotted 
to each day the business and concerns of his daily life ; 
so as to fill every hour with propriety, and never to 
appear an instant unemployed. The morning, after he 
had overlooked the housekeeping, and wound up the 
wall clock, belonged to his profession ; and it was his 
habit so to spread out the preparation of his Sunday’s 
sermons, that he was occupied with them two hours 
every day. At the stroke of twelve, the soup stood on 
the table ; and each day of the week, in the different sea- 
sons, had its appointed dish. After dinner, he took a 
short nap, then read some theological journal, had his 
coffee afterwards, and a walk. From seven till a quar- 
ter past, came supper, followed by a renewed oversight 
of the housekeeping, and arrangements for the next 
day ; and about eight o’clock he returned to his room, 
to take up, till nine, an old book or his college notes. 

To-day, he was willing to bear the stranger company-, 
and he did so by walking on his accustomed plank, and 
humming his tune. When the house-clock struck nine. 


A STONE HOUSE. 


89 


it was time for bed, and they helped the guest up stairs 
to his room, with many protestations, on his part, of 
infinite suffering. After he had been a little while 
alone, he could hear some one shuffling through the 
house. It was the old man, who was trying once more 
every door, window, and lock, according to custom; 
and who, when he reached Werner’s door, turned the 
key, and stalked down to his sleeping-room on the 
ground floor. 

Such was the day in a German private family. A 
second just like it, Werner had to live through; and 
during the second, too, he had not seen Martha, the aim 
of all his desires. His comfortless captivity began to 
engender very diverse reflections, for he found plenty of 
tedium in it, and a little repentance. He could not 
altogether divest himself of a certain respect for these 
beings, and their mode of life. He had never learned 
to appreciate domestic life ; for his father, an officer of 
rank, had died early ; and his mother, a frivolous lady of 
fashion, had kept him as far as possible from her, so 
long as she wished to be thought young; and when he 
did live near her, her pleasure consisted in having him 
cause a great deal of. talk about himself. Once, when 
he was about to have a duel for life or death about some 
trifle, she found gratification in his courage ; and when 
she died, he could not remember that he had shed a 
tear. 

Here, however, he saw four beings, not tied to each 
other by smiling prosperity, by warm love, by the ne- 
cessities of existence ; but chained together by an invi- 
sible, incomprehensible, and apparently indissoluble tie ; 
the tie of family, the tie of blood. ‘‘ Why does not the 
9 


90 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


son,” he said to himself, “^o out into the world? Why 
does not the father push him out of the house ? Why 
is this daughter so obedient to her parents? Why does 
the wife pine over her homesickness? They all give 
up, disclaim, suffer, despair; not out of gratitude, not 
from love, but only to be with each other. Their in- 
ward bent tears all four apart, and yet they cannot live 
away from each other.” Astonishment, even horror, 
possessed him in the presence of these powers, which, 
with a force wholly unanticipated, held their life bound 
together; and which he was forced to recognize as^mo- 
ral powers. He perceived with alarm that they had no 
influence over him; that they had never consecrated 
him ; but he set himself in revenge to laugh at these 
stunted figures. He shook off the fearful feeling of his 
isolation by a resort to his wit, which likened these 
people to the so-called Siamese twins, who had grown up 
with their bodies fast together, always longing in oppo- 
site directions, yet never coming apart. 

Poor Werner! his horror was surmountable, but his 
impatience was not. Oh! tedious adventure! Even 
when really sick, he could never endure such a long 
period of rest, and now what a rest was this ! No billet- 
doux ! No card of condolence brought to his bedside 
on a silver waiter! No companions with the latest 
news! No whist party! Nothing at all but that cursed 
humming of the parson, the cackle of his wife, and 
raspberry water, eternal raspberry water ! And after 
all, instead of having an adventure, to have to ap- 
pear like a dupe ! For he had never had a glimpse 
of the beautiful daughter by whom he had expected 
to be nursed. He heard her, perhaps, speaking in 


A STONE HOUSE. 


91 


the house ; or she might knock at the chamber-door 
and set something inside ; or possibly pass outside in 
front of the window; but she never turned a look 
within, and acted as if she knew nothing of her knight. 
His fingers clutched spasmodically together, whenever 
he thought over his situation ; he grew nervous, and 
longed to spring up and dance about on those ima- 
ginary broken bones, and cry out: “I will play this 
part no longer.” His resolution was fixed to take a 
bold step that very night; and if the girl should, after 
all, decline an understanding with him, why she would 
cease to be worth his sacrifice, and he would disappear 
next morning from the house. 

To-night, again, he heard the key of his room-door 
turn round, but he did not go to sleep. On the contrary, 
he stretched his limbs to assure himself that they were 
not really lame, and listened to detect if all were quiet 
in the house. While thus occupied, he heard the door 
of Martha’s room, which was opposite his own, open, 
and light steps pass by his door. The house door be- 
low was then opened, and he saw from the gable-window, 
a light dress glide by the dark buttresses of the church. 

Werner looked out of the window around him. He 
perceived that from the gable he could reach the garden 
wall, though not without danger, and might thence de- 
scend by the vine trellis into the garden itself. Unter- 
rified by the possibility that the brittle tiles of the roof 
might crush through with him, he steps across the win- 
dow-sill ; but how great and how delightful is his sur- 
prise, at seeing the most comfortable and secure prepa- 
ration made for his expedition. A rope hangs fastened 
from the gable above, by which he can hold on, and 


92 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


easily help himself out to the end of the roof, and thence 
lower himself on to the wall. He troubled himself but 
little about who had furnished him this capital opportu- 
nity, but availed himself of it at once. 

He reached the garden without injury or trouble, and 
passed close by the church in the direction of the grave- 
yard. He was unacquainted with the path, and stum- 
bled over many a grave, hillock, and many a stone; but 
the roar of the whirlpool below was his guide. He 
recognizes the white cross, and detects a motionless 
figure leaning against it. 

As he approaches, he observes that Martha has 
thrown her arms around the cross, and is pressing her 
heart against the cold stone. Her face is turned 
towards the stream, and she does not see him. 

He felt so delighted at the success of his adventure, 
that he observed her airy form at his leisure, and specu- 
lated how he should accost her. Should it be by affec- 
tionately clasping her waist, jestingly surprising her 
with his hands before her eyes, or even by boldly seiz- 
ing the memorable little foot. He hears her speak, and 
she is speaking to herself. ^ The wind blows her tremu- 
lous words to him, and he hears: Peace, peace, my 
heart. Create, 0 God, a pure heart in me, and take 
not thy Holy Spirit from me. Oh! give me strength, 
Almighty Father, give me strength.” 

She was praying. Werner stood bewildered. The 
whole life of this family" was incomprehensible to him. 
How earnestly and deeply, thought he, do they all 
apprehend it. The prose of the old man was solemn ; 
the poetry of the girl was solemn too. How should he 
manifest himself ? Should he break in upon her prayers ? 


A STONE HOUSE. 


93 


and what sort of conversation could he carry on in such 
a frame of mind as that ? At length he seizes her — 
not by the waist, not by the foot, but softly and timidly 
by her downfallen hand. 

She started, nor was her emotion tranquillized by 
perceiving who it was. She tried to escape, but he held 
her back. Fright and anger were painted upon her 
features, and Werner felt a warm drop upon his hand. 
She was weeping. 

Away ! what do you seek ? Away from me !” she 
exclaimed with indignation, as she tried to push him 
from her. But he was not intimidated. He held her 
hand, and placed himself so near her that she could not 
leave her position by the cross. ^ ‘‘ Martha,” he asked, 
coaxingly, “ do you wish to know nothing, nothing at 
all, about me?” 

‘‘ Nothing ! nothing more.” 

“ You are angry with me, then ?” 

“ I am not angry with you. Since you have been in 
our house, I know nothing of you. One thing alone I 
know, that you have no right to deceive my parents, to 
pursue me by dishonorable ways. Away ! begone from 
me !” 

‘‘It is on your account, Martha, that I am in that 
house.” 

“ Not with my consent.” 

“ And yet only through you, through your familiarity 
towards me, through my trust in you, am I here. Martha, 
the first kiss which you gave me on this very spot, which 
startled me as'though a star had fallen from the sky, 
ought not that to have given me courage to approach 
you ? And when I held you in my arms, and dared to 
9 * 


94 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


press my lips upon the sanctuary of your own, did I 
not by that assume the duty, the sacred, the inviolable 
duty, of testifying to you that I was worthy of you, 
and that I could hold no sacrifice as aught, which might 
keep me near that sanctuary.” 

Even in the darkness he could see how she blushed, 
and he felt her hand quiver convulsively in his. ‘‘Father, 
father !” she ejaculated, “ you are right — resist but the 
first false step. Oh! why did I struggle against your 
warning ? You ever wished what was best for me. 
Now I am compelled to hear this. Now I must stand 
before you thus !” 

“ So noble, so pure, so worthy of devotion !” ex- 
claimed Werner, and fell upon his knees at her feet. 
“ What do you fear? Why do you shun me? I love 
you, Martha. The whole world can have no right, no 
power against that love. I have already sacrificed a 
sure advantage in life, that I might linger with you ; and 
will you recognize no claim, no confidence of soul? I 
come here to look upon the stream with you, to gaze at 
nature with you, to pray with you, as on that evening. 
And will you call that sin ?” 

“No, no!” she cried, strugglingly. “Speak not of 
that. I feel that it is the stream of destruction ; my 
heart glides with the stream away from the right. I 
will not talk with you. Oh, God 1 You have already 
deceived my parents, you may be false also to me.” 

“Martha, your heart does not believe that.” 

“I listen to my heart no longer,” she replied, with 
gloomy solemnity, pressing her bosom to the cold stone 
of the cross. “ My heart is dead to me. I will obey 
my father alone. Oh! leave me,” she prayed with 


A STONE HOUSE. 


95 


soft emotion, letting her head sink down; ‘‘life is already 
bitter enough.” 

He kissed her hand more and more passionately, he 
appealed to her more and more earnestly. Her entreaty 
that he would leave her grew softer and softer. He 
clasped her knees. She laid her hand on his head, as 
if she would push him from her, but let it rest there, as 
if she would clasp him to her. Her resistance had 
roused in him a feeling of rapture that he had never 
anticipated; and that joyful peace of companionship, 
which is so sweet after sorrow, was overcoming her. 
Her last resistance seemed vanishing in a sigh — when 
she uttered a sharp cry and started to one side. 

A stooping figure, in a long black robe, was moving 
away inaudibly over the graves, towards the precipice. 
Scarcely twenty steps from the painfully surprised pair, 
it stood still, upon an elevation on the brink, horribly 
distinct against the clear night sky, then stretched out 
both its hand^ to heaven, and, silent as it came, vanished 
into the yawning abyss. 

“What is that?” asked Werner, who thought he ought 
to hasten to the help of some unfortunate. But she held 
him tremblingly fast, and said with fearful firmness : 
“ The Ghost, our ancestor ! He wanders here because he 
denied God. He has warned me. For Heaven’s sake 
leave me. I needed it ; my arrogance must be broken. 
Now I am resolved for all, prepared for all. Why should 
I seek to be happy ? Others beside me are unhappy,” 
and growing each moment more impulsive, she conti- 
nued : “ To-morrow you must leave our house, or I 
expose you to my father. Again, and for the last time, 
an eternal farewell !” 


96 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


Awe and reverence prevented Werner from any longer 
opposing her resolve, and she flitted rapidly from his 
view. He stood now alone in the midst of the church- 
yard. The heaven overhead, and the earth beneath 
him he knew ; the crickets chirped, a nightingale sang, 
as they do universally in summer ; but in what had met 
him within these walls, between earth and heaven, he 
had never yet learned to believe. He thought they must 
belong together, this maiden virtue, and the ghost ; at 
least, he could not tell in which of the two it was easier 
for him to believe. 

His happy nature even now helped him to good spi- 
rits. This new world, in which there were deeds and 
thoughts reaching far above the common comprehension, 
and the egotism of what elsewhere is called the World, 
infused into him a reverence and awe that were real. 
Yet he did not sink down before it, he prostrated him- 
self before no horrible impression ; but he looked around 
him in self-assured comfort, upon the romantic obscurity 
of the church, and the graves, and gave himself up to 
reflections on the presentiments of this world. He felt 
that he could grow domestic in this soil of mysterious 
poetry. 

He stood by the vine trellis in front of the house ; 
above, he saw a single window lighted up and open, and 
a shadow was moving backwards and forwards behind it. 
It was Martha’s shadow. He gazed at it long. The 
light was extinguished, and a flame of consecrated emo- 
tion streamed long after from his heart, up to the dark 
open window. His bosom swelled high with desire, 
expectation, and joy ; as when one returns from long 
and distant wanderings, and the lights of his home- 


A STONE HOUSE. 97 

shore glimmer on him in the dusky night, when no one 
expects him. 

It was a new world that rose before Werner’s inward 
eye, but a home seemed to be beckoning to him ; and he 
felt, with a joyous heart, that his arm had the vigor to 
steer thither. Unwonted, fermenting thoughts heaved 
and subsided within him, as on the night when Martha 
first showed him the stream ; but this time there was no 
conflict, no repentance, no pain ; for a life-determining, 
life-conquering resolution emerged gleamingly from their 
depths. 

Tearing himself abruptly from these embodying 
dreams, he was on the trellis, over the gate, and in his 
room. He struck a light with the tinder-box in his 
cigar-case, took some paper from his pocket-book, and 
wrote ; tore up the leaf, and a second after it, walked 
thoughtfully up and down the room, again wrote ; and 
at last stood up with a folded note. 

Hours had slipped away in all this. The moon had 
risen, and now illumined the high church tower with its 
solemn brilliance, mirroring itself in the pointed arched 
windows, and throwing long shadows beside the but- 
tresses. 

It rose at the hour of one, that hour when the spirits 
go back to their graves, when so many deeds of love and 
of crime are accomplished by its light. 

On the gable of the parsonage a man again crept 
along, stepping from one window to another. He van- 
ished in Martha’s chamber, the next second reappeared ; 
and the moon shone on the thoughtful, joyously smiling 
face of Werner. 


98 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


CHAPTER V. 

AN HONEST GHOST. 

It was about this time that the parson was busied in 
loosening the soil of his vineyard around the vines. 
Martha and the maid-servant were employed about it 
out of doors all day, and Dora, who wanted to ingra- 
tiate herself at the parsonage, and had a relish for the 
more nourishing food she found there, was again assist- 
ing, as she had formerly done. The same work was 
going on, too, in the Ranger’s vineyard, which touched 
the parson’s at one corner ; and here Lenette was occu- 
pied, so that in the leisure moments of the day, the three 
girls met together in some shady spot more than once. 

Martha had seemed to her friends for the past few 
days to be suffering, and she had been in reality op- 
pressed by her thoughts. When one wishes to be good, 
thought she, and she wished to be so, cost what it might, 
one must not desire happiness too ; at any rate not that 
overflowing, inexpressible happiness, whose anticipation 
and longing had seized her she knew not how, and whose 
possession had so recently carried, her to heaven in dizzy 
raptures. But then she knew nothing of any other hap- 
piness, of any measured enjoyment of daily life. 

How changed, however, to-day found her, as she 
came out to her task ! Her whole nature was so beam- 


AN HONEST GHOST. 


99 


ing, so glowing ; sad at the same time ; so fluttering in 
suspense, and so holy. Dora felt sure that something 
must have happened, and what could it have been but 
something with the stranger ! A guest, and such a guest 
in the house ! she knew whom she had to deal with, and 
determined to find out at once. 

“ You are as lively as a carp to-day,” she began. 
“ Yes, that comes from the confirmation ; one’s life be- 
gins when one is consecrated. You can look a man in 
the face very differently after that. Have you tried it 
since your consecration ? Isn’t it now a very different 
thing?” 

Martha gave her a snappish rebuff, a thing totally 
unprecedented, and Dora began from another side. “ It’s 
very wrong, at any rate, for the stranger to incommode 
you so long. He must see how little you are prepared 
for company, and this is now the third day that he is 
staying with you.” 

A gentle blush crept over Martha as she uttered the 
falsehood — “But when one is sick !” She said no more 
about him, and that alone showed Dora that she thought 
all the more about him. No matter how often Martha 
evaded her, she began again and again about him; speak- 
ing of him, now well, now ill ; now in jest, now seri- 
ously. The three pearls were already standing on her 
little pug nose, more from the fatigue of talking than 
from work ; but she would not give over. Martha was 
at last caught ; for she had first replied to his praises, 
that she knew nothing about the stranger ; and then at 
his censure, that she knew herself he was not bad. From 
this contradiction, Dora forced her to confess that some- 
thing had taken place between the stranger and herself ; 


100 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


and as Martha struggled to keep it secret, warned her 
against the faithlessness of man, with all that eager elo- 
quence which could belong only to a being of her cha- 
racter, when speaking ill of the other sex. 

‘‘ They all have the devil in them,” said she ; ‘^and 
are possessed by him for the very purpose of making us 
poor innocent things in love and unhappy. You ought 
never to trust one of them ; for even if there is one out 
of an hundred you might venture it with, you never 
know whether you have hit on that one. All their be- 
havior, and their words, won’t prove it to you. No, 
indeed, you must have been deceived ten times, before 
you can see clearly into them. I have had perhaps a 
little experience in that, and mother has enlightened 
me, so that I could possibly advise you, if you would 
only confide in me.” 

Martha had grown really uneasy, and promised to 
hold a council with her and Lenette, at noon. The cow- 
boy brought them their dinners, and the pair seated 
themselves in the shade, alongside of Lenette, behind a 
thick trellis ; while Martha lightened her heart, and 
opened the conversation with these Words : — 

“ Ah ! you must advise me ; for my heart is so glad ; 
and yet I have such a terrible fear ; see, that is what has 
happened.” At these words she drew a folded note from 
her bodice, and blushingly continued : “ Think of my 
alarm ; I found that this morning on my bed.” 

Dora hastily seized it, and read it ; she read a letter 
from Werner. It professed that Martha did him injus- 
tice in distrusting him, for where should he seek his 
happiness if he found it not with her. He ofiered her 
his hand and his heart. He was rich enough in worldly 


AN HONEST GHOST. 


101 


goods to take a wife, whether rich enough in heart she 
must decide. She must meet him the next evening again 
at the cross. 

The astonishment of the two girls was now boundless. 
Lenette looked thoughtfully before her and said : “ How 
prettily that is expressed — ‘ whether rich enough in 
heart’ — how many things do happen in this world, to 
he sure and then she began to titter over his having 
seen Martha asleep. 

Dora, on the other hand, was perfectly clear on the 
point from the beginning. ‘^That is luck ! that is luck!” 
she exclaimed, and explained that she meant by that^ 
his having written. You have got it in writing, that 
is the great point; everything else is immaterial. I 
know too, what must happen now, I can tell you. He 
will have to write to you now in addition, what he owns, 
and what he will settle on you if you become his wife. 
Oh 1 I know all about that. I shan’t let myself be 
cheated. I shall know beforehand what I’ve got to. do, 
and you must know it too. Do you take ? In writing, 
only in writing. What he says and promises to you is 
all wind ; but black and white : that’s the main thing. 
Enough!” 

So Dora hurried on, and grew so lively withal that 
she seemed almost angry at Martha. Certainly either 
this affair, or one like it, must have interested her ex- 
tremely. There was a little envy, too, in her compressed 
lips as she exclaimed : ‘‘Luck! luck!- Here now will 
you be the first to wear the cap, of all us who learned 
fine sewing together, and the luckiest by all odds. For 
what must the man own ! When such a fine, cunning 
man as he takes a poor country girl, he must be rich ; 

10 


102 


THE ROSE OE THE PARSONAGE. 


rich, indeed, not to want any more. Who knows all 
that’s hidden behind him ? Oh ! luck, luck !” 

The advice that Martha took in the end, was Le- 
nette’s; for, although in her parents’ house, she had not 
learned Dora’s cunning, neither had she acquired Mar- 
tha’s prudery. She said : I think he means honorably, 
but for that very reason, you must not be with him, nor 
meet him alone. Go to-day where he expects you, and 
tell him that he must propose to your father for your 
hand, and I am sure your father can have no objections. 
Such a husband ! Why I should give my father the 
greatest delight by such an event. But he must not 
stay any longer in your house. It doesn’t do for en- 
gaged people. Tell him he may come back to us if he 
can. We all like him, and all the more if he is your 
sweetheart.” 

This conversation was the first thing that gave Mar- 
tha an assurance that her happiness was a reality, and 
not a mere dream ; for the mere meeting with the stran- 
ger was so extraordinary an event for her, one so en- 
tirely beyond the expectation of her life, that she had 
never been able to regard it as a possibility, even after 
she had read the actual letter an hundred times. 

After his afternoon walk, the parson came into the 
field to inspect their work. He looked around morose 
as usual, in his long black coat, and leaning with his 
hands on the horn knob of his cane. Nothing that the 
others did seemed to satisfy him, and he was the only 
one who knew how to do everything right. He seized 
the pick hastily out of Martha’s hand, to show her how 
she ought to use it, so as to go deep into the ground 
and not injure the vine ; made two or three blows into 


AN HONEST GHOST. 


103 


the soil in his violent way, and at the third-struck a 
fresh sappy root and broke it in two. Martha pettishly 
turned up her little nose. It was the first time she had 
ever allowed herself such an impertinent little superci- 
liousness towards her father. 

When she came home in the evening, the parson was 
waiting for her at the door, as he had done yesterday, 
and the day before. He lafd to her charge all the pain- 
ful disturbance his uninvited guest had caused, and bade 
her no good evening, spoke no kindly word. With an 
air of command he motioned her up stairs, and banished 
her to her room. 

Werner might observe that his request was granted, 
for the key of his room-door, which the parson had 
turned, as usual, at nightfall, was turned back again ; 
and he hastened to his appointment with a rapturous 
smile, over the path thus made easy for him. Yet it was 
with astonishment that he^observed that Martha was not 
alone. Lenette was with her, as a guard of honor. The 
poor lame man ! Concealing her shame under a jest, 
Martha received him, and stretched out her hand with 
constrained cordiality. He tried to embrace her, but 
she repulsed him; not now the timid girl, dreamily sunk 
within herself, but wholly her own mistress, acting wholly 
for herself. Half entreatingly, half in sport, Werner 
tried in vain to fold her in his arms, and to kiss her. 
She interrupted him by saying: “I am here but for a 
single word. You must leave our house; to-morrow 
early, if you love me, you must depart.” 

Still, firmly as she acted, she was inwardly much em- 
barrassed. She could not see how to begin the discourse, 
and carry out Lenette’s advice; and so, while her whole 


104 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


heart beat consent, she began with a repulse. She had 
to collect herself, in order to speak more fully : Go 
back again to the Ranger’s. Lenette invites you.” 

“Is that your last word?” asked Werner, indignantly. 
“ And why ? What has come between us ?” 

“Speak to my father,” she replied, snatched her hand 
from him, and, with a smile, was gone ; while he stretched 
the arms that tried to clasp her out into the empty air. 

Werner felt like laughing outright. It looked to him- 
self exceedingly like a dupe. It was infinitely rude or 
prosaic, one of the two, this “Speak to my father;” 
and he felt it intolerable to have been shut up like a 
schoolboy in his room, for such a reward as this. His 
thirst for romantic love began to look to him rather 
childlike, if not decidedly childish. 

His leisure, the tedium, and his disappointed hopes 
threw him into a truly peevish state of temper ; and, in 
extreme dejection, he flung himself, in his clothes, upon 
the bed. He had scarcely fallen into a doze, however, 
when he was awaked by a noise. 

The moon was high in the heavens, and it must have 
been long past midnight. Werner listened, and heard 
some one calling in the corridor: “John, John, for 
heaven’s sake get up ! Something is wrong ; there is a 
ghost in the house !” 

It was Martha’s voice. He heard her knock at John’s 
door, apparently in vain. Suddenly she cried out: 
“ Help, help !” His own door was still unfastened ; he 
hastened out; and Martha, in her night gear, her loosened 
hair concealed by a pretty nightcap, sank half senseless 
in his arms, gasping scarce audibly : “ The ghost ! Oh, 
have I done wrong again? The ghost !” 


AN HONEST GHOST. 


105 


In spite of a slight tremor that ran over him at the 
recollection of last night’s adventure, Werner could not 
resist a smile. As he looked around in every direction, 
and perceived nothing spectre-like, but, on the contrary, 
beheld in his arms this fragrant, budding parsonage rose, 
which he held clasped with the greatest gentleness, hut, 
at the same time, the greatest firmness. As she con- 
cealed her face on his breast, from fright and shame, and 
he gazed with a watchful delight at her white, slender 
neck, and the mysterious concealment in which her 
modest night-dress sheltered her, and thence let his eye 
fall to the delicious little bare foot, that was vainly hut 
laboriously striving to escape his gaze and the cold stone 
floor, he found the situation an extremely delightful 
casualty. All terror was gone. This style of apparition 
was so completely to his taste, he was so entirely recon- 
ciled to his adventure and the romance of this dwelling, 
that he inclined, in proof of it, to press a kiss of recon- 
ciliation upon Martha’s neck. 

At this instant, however, a sudden terror quivered 
through him, an ‘‘Ah!” escaped his lips, and he pressed 
his charge convulsively and closely to him. But he did 
not feel her warm breathing fulness, for his blood ran 
cold. The light of the moon revealed a huge living 
shadow stretching along the floor before him; and when 
he turned his eyes to the window, there he saw a black 
figure — the same figure, in priestly robe, that horrified 
him last night — again stretching both its arms on high. 

He thought now in reality of the ghost of the ances- 
tor, who wished to tear his darling from his breast. In 
a high-swelling feeling of mingled love and apprehen- 
10 * 


106 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


sion, he pressed her to his bosom, in the full conscious- 
ness of his manly strength. 

“Cling to me,” he whispered to her; “I will protect 
you. Fear nothing.” 

“ Dearest, best !” she tremblingly replied, not terri- 
fied this time from his breast by the spectre, but clinging 
to him for protection, as though he were the only sup- 
port she had in the world. 

Yes, it was actually the girl who sought protection on 
his breast; and that trembling, that whispered “dearest, 
best!” kindled in him a sublime, holy consciousness of 
his truest manly worth ; a courage that gave him strength 
to protect her against the whole world, against his own 
passion also. 

And what sort of danger was there in a ghost, whose 
reality he never fully believed in, and now did not believe 
at all, as it began to move and stalk down into the room, 
in which nobody was visible, for both kept themselves 
silent in the dark background ? 

With a step, the girl was concealed behind the cham- 
ber door, that still stood open, and Werner resolutely 
approached the figure. But a new fright seized him. 
The robe swept back as the spectre stepped along, and 
the form that disclosed itself underneath was even more 
awful. Half red and half yellow, with a frightful hump 
before and behind, the figure leaned against the wall. 
Werner, however, did not lose his courage, but, still un- 
noticed by it, stepped quickly up to the figure, seized it 
by the hump, and, as he grasped flesh and bone, or, at any 
rate, cloth and wool, he shook it to his heart’s content. 

“Merciful providence! are there ghosts here?” groaned 
the form; and, as Werner called out to him: “Who are 


AN HONEST GHOST. 


lOT 


you, you rascal, in the devil’s name?’’ his groan changed 
t(ra tittering laugh. “Zounds! is it you, my brother- 
in-law in expectation? Capital! only he quiet. You can 
understand a joke, you rogue ; one can see it in you.” 

Werner scarcely knew what to think. The danger 
was over, but what a strange inhabitant was this for this 
house! He put his question a second time; and, at last, 
half laughing, half stuttering, it replied : “ It’s I, my 
dear brother-in-law ; I, I, John — ha, ha ! John — not 
the baptist, but the tippler.” 

“Is it you!” exclaimed Werner; “where do you 
come from, and in what sort of a dress ?” 

“ From a pastime, you wag !” he cunningly replied, 
“ from a masked ball in the town. It was masquerade 
night at the Apollo. I jumped out of the window, and 
ran here post haste to get rid of that cursed woman. I 
shall be a papa, eh ! ha, ha ; I, papa ! Why, I’m 
Quasimodo, bellringer of Notre Dame. Yes, yes, it’s not 
mere sport, there’s earnest behind it. Just such a 
cripple, just such a monster, one that could even spit on 
himself ; does a man grow under the black coat. Ha, 
ha ! outside the priest, and inside the bellringer of 
Notre Dame ; the bellringer of our lady, the new age. 
The chamber, there, is my belfry. No one sees it — no 
one knows it here in the house ; but it is I, who alone 
up there set the great alarm-bell of thought in motion ; 
bim-bam, bim-bam for a new St. Bartholomew’s eve. 

Burn all the churches, , 

Destroy all the monks, 

Choke them all. 

Kill them all, 

Smite them all, 

Bim-bam, bim-bam. 


108 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


“ That’s the way it roars out from the solitary little 
thinking-room into the broad world; and, like the bell- 
ringer, when he could hold in his consecrated bell no 
longer, I let myself sway out on my thoughts into the 
dizzy height, hither and thither — hurled out high over 
the limits of earthly nothingness, till, reeling in the infi- 
nite, my senses go, then — ” 

Up to this point John had spoken with a gloomily re- 
pressed pathos, in which suffering and inspiration seemed 
to mingle with frenzy. But now he sprang down with 
an abrupt change of voice, into a low, frivolous tone : 
“And then,” he continued, “I let go; I let go my 
thoughts, and slap there I lie in the mud. Ah ! what 
infinite delight it is, from the cold altitude of a thought 
ether, slap-spat, to plash in the mud. Oh ! and to 
wallow to one’s heart’s content in the warm mud, till one 
finds his senses again.” 

John was for an instant lost in reflection. He seemed 
to feel ashamed of his coarse language, and, as if to 
excuse himself, continued, in a more polished and ele- 
gant tone : “ Heaven and earth, man, are the hinges 
on which human existence hangs. I have been unhinged 
from heaven and earth. Like a star that has strayed 
from its orbit, I wander round through the whole ex- 
panse, and find my centre no more. Do you know those 
spirited lines of our most eloquent poet ? 

Ein Stern in einem Haup Mist, 

In Rothe wird der stern erloschin. 

“Ah! bah I miserable company, mud. Ah 1 my God, 
horrible company, yet ^still company. Ha, ha! that 
speaks and jumps, and laughs when you tickle it — and 


AN HONEST GHOST. 109 

screams when you pinch it ; and drinks, yes, it’s drink, 
drink, drink, till head and heart break.” 

This powerful transition from laughing extravagance 
to gloomy brooding, had shocked Werner ; but he now 
shuddered, as John suddenly clutched with his hands be- 
fore his pale face, as if in a spasm, tore his dark hair, 
and burst out in the ravings of madness. 

“ Ah ! and how long before such a heart breaks ? 
God in heaven, if indeed thou dost exist, I must settle 
with thee that thou gavest me a heart that lasts longer 
than my head. My head is gone, I have forgotten how 
to speak, or to think — I wrote down my last thoughts a 
week ago. To thee, great Spinoza, I have paid my 
thanks — they are consecrated to thee. Since then, it 
is all over with thought. Air, air ! how can I think ? 
Air, air ! I can only breathe out what I inhale, and 
where is there a living inspiration for my soul. Breath, 
breath ! for I suffocate under this black coat. Air, air!” 

Werner thought he saw a bedlamite before him ; yet, 
before calling for assistance, he tried to tranquillize the 
fearfully unhappy creature by persuasion. “But re- 
flect where you are. You will wake the people in the 
house. What will your father say ?” 

“ My father I” and at the name the drunken man col- 
lected himself. “ My father ! W’^here am I ? Where 
am I, then ?” 

“You are at home; don’t you recognize me? You 
have come through the wrong window into your guest’s 
sleeping-room,” replied Werner. 

“At home!” said John, in an anxious low tone of 
voice. “ My God ! is it so ? And perhaps I have 
made a disturbance. Who shut to my window so that I 


110 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


couldn’t get in ? If I am discovered thus ! Oh ! at 
home ! and to-morrow, another day when I must keep 
silent, or if I speak must lie, and if not lie, endure. 
And to-morrow ! what have I to do to-morrow ? what 
was it, then ? Ah ! yes, cursed schoolmaster, I will not 
marry her. Who says she was true to me ? Pretty 
company, indeed ! Shall I stick always in the mud, 
caught in pitch boots, an ape for your folly ? Yes, yes, 
the women, the women. I can tell you, sir, if you didn’t 
know it, there’s no joke about them. As for my sister, 
she is an honest child ; but do what you will, I don’t 
care. I am no spoil-sport. Kiss away ! why the fly 
and the sparrow do that, and why not a man ? Kiss 
away, kiss away ; break her heart ; no matter, she has 
her fun with it all. If you don’t break it, it’s already 
settled it must be broken. The old man will do it ; he 
can’t bear hearts — he breaks them crick-crack, every 
heart without compunction. But, do you love her ? 
then save her from him ; set her free, free. Oh ! who 
can he free ! Six years ago I stood before the old man : 
‘ F ather,’ I said to him, ‘ set me free ; I cannot believe what 
you believe ; let me go free — free into the world outside.’ 
He refused, he threatened me with his curse ; I should 
believe. I was a pious fool. I obeyed, I stayed, and — 
this is what I have become. Oh ! take me to bed. I’m 
a miserable creature ; drunk, gloriously drunk. Ah ! 
well, there’s a poetry in drinking, if one would only 
drink consistently. I have a notion, sir, that a grand 
new existence must lie on the other side of drunkenness, 
a fairy world, to which we must drink through. If we 
only had the courage to gulp down, not for a moment, 
but till oblivion swamps us, and there is no longer a 


AN HONEST GHOST. 


Ill 


shore ; uneasy dreams are over, the nightmare comes 
no more — and at any rate, one sleeps the sounder. Oh ! 
I’m tired to death. I have got well drunk, well kissed, 
too, and yet no sport in it after all. I’ll go to bed.” 

Werner led the tipsy fellow into his room, let him 
fall dressed as he was on his bed, and hurried back to 
meet Martha before she could have escaped to her room. 

At her door he folded her in his arms. She was agi- 
tated, hut did not struggle. She rested long upon his 
breast, but spoke not a word. Even he kept silent, for 
the incident affected him deeply. The moon was shining 
down upon them. Martha had buried her head in his 
bosom, and he could see and feel her deep breathing, and 
felt too that he could pass half a lifetime thus, holding 
this loveliness in his arms and watching its breathings. 

“And you love me, dearest?” he asked; yet it was 
the fullest satisfaction, the most complete fulfilment of 
all her worth, that she could not answer, but only hid 
her head deeper in his breast. He fancied he could 
feel her print a light kiss upon his neck-handkerchief. 

It was the girl’s confession. This love, which uttered 
no word, but only loved, it was this which was so new 
to him, so boundlessly entrancing. He now saw clearly, 
that he had never before comprehended her. Among 
all his prizes in woman’s favor, won before now in the 
pursuit of his inclinations, he had missed one thing ; the 
view into a pure heart, the bodeful knowledge of modest 
love. 

With all the thoughts that now rose before him of 
woman’s worth, and the tenderness of love, he could 
have filled a whole night of lover’s trifling, with grace- 
ful poetical prattle; yet he spoke not. He was so happy, 


112 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


SO happy to be able to merely, without a word — 
that word behind which lurks a lie. He said only one 
thing to Martha which she did not understand. “ You 
do not speak poetry, for thou art poesy herself. Mar- 
tha, my own Martha.” 

A pair of eyes looked up at him. Stars which seemed 
to shine up to him from out the darkness of his own 
bosom. She turned herself towards him, to see the 
mouth that had so sweetly uttered her name ; and, as 
if drawn by the magnetism of his gaze, she threw 
her arms round his neck, reached high on tiptoe, and 
pressed her face against his; yet without kissing it — as 
though she would willingly die on his gaze. As he now 
kissed her, what a quiver trembled in her bosom. 
Quick flew her breath. Joy and pain, exultation and 
suffering, thronged together within that tremble. He 
could now understand that breathing, which, between 
smiles and sighs, could utter no word. 

He clasped her head, so that the moonlight shone re- 
splendently into her face, and stamped, as it were, deep, 
deep into it a look of the fullest life, the richest love. 

Then, at last, did Martha find utterance. “We 
shall now, perhaps, be no more unhappy. Never, never 
more!” And as she said this, she kissed him once 
again, and warned him between his kisses. “ To-morrow, 
go to the Ranger’s — stay there — demand me of my fa- 
ther,” and with a loud sigh of delight, she had vanished 
in her chamber. 

The same joy was Martha’s companion to the vine- 
yard next day, after the morning’s draught of fresh 
milk had cooled the warmth of her blood. In this ful- 
ness of sensation she wished to meet no one before whom 


AN HONEST GHOST. 


113 


she would have been forced, to drop her eyes, and who 
might have been able to interrupt her heart’s bliss. 
Not till evening, when Werner would have left the 
house, when his proposal should have justified her joy, 
would she return gayly to the happy home. True, she 
was fearful in the meanwhile how her father would re- 
ceive the proposal ; hut then her betrothal with Andrew 
had certainly been interrupted, and left incomplete, and 
her father could not hut seize with delight the chance 
of bestowing her on a man like Werner — whose equal 
he could never find — that is, if he really wished her 
happiness. And she could not doubt that he did that. 

She felt herself no longer constrained, but her de- 
sires ran far out into the distance, and she beheld her 
life gliding on to its goal, in the unchecked current of 
bliss. The clear blue sky, the fresh green fields, every 
pure and clear creation smiled so familiarly on her. 
All day long she sang and smiled over her gentle and 
healthful toil. 

Smile and sing on,’ poor child, while the day shines. 
Even now an evening dark, cold, and heavy with storm 
is gathering up over thee ; an evening which shall strike 
down at one blow a whole life-crop of freshly sprouting 
hopes. 

To-day was another of those days peculiar to Wen- 
delin’s dwelling. A day such as was so often lived 
through here, and ever repeated afresh ; a day of heart- 
breaking without a fracture, of pulling backwards and 
forwards, but no separation. It was a day, too, more 
frightful, and, at the same time, more tolerable than any 
previous one; for things seemed to be approaching an 
11 


114 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


unprecedented enfranchisement, a final rupture, a final 
separation. 

The dissension in this family had its origin not so 
much in any depravity of its members, nor any hatred 
amongst themselves. On the contrary, every one had 
to say of the rest — no one of us has a had heart, no 
one is base. The disunion arose from a deep-rooted 
inward contrariety, in the different directions of the 
same noble pursuit after the good, after true virtue and 
true happiness. More or less conscious in themselves 
of this common tendency ; a union, reconciliation, and 
blending of their life-paths, became again and again 
practicable. In spite of all the sudden outbursts of 
dissension, each one believed, so soon as the quiet of 
their regular life was once more established, that har- 
mony was attained, or at least begun ; but let never so 
small a shock again come, and all fell once more into 
the old individual characteristics of inrooted difference 
from each other. 

Such a new shock was given to-day. 

After the surgeon’s visit, Werner had announced him- 
self cured, and left the parsonage. At his departure, 
he had given out that he was a man of wealth, and 
thought of purchasing a property in the neighborhood. 

“ Will you give up your situation, then?” asked the 
parson: ‘‘ Yes, replied Werner, “ when the wish of my 
heart is fulfilled,” and he little dreamed how completely 
this reply had lost him the little hold he possibly had 
on the parson’s esteem. 

Nothing was more repugnant to the latter than an 
independent life, under no restraint and no authority ; 
subjected neither to the church, nor the state. He 


AN HONEST GHOST. 


115 


made no distinction between the independence of a rich 
proprietor, or the toilsome self-maintenance of the scho- 
lar, and the life of the outlawed vagabond. 

It was after this, and not long before dinner, that 
John descended from his room ; and while his gloomy 
nature looked out from under his eyebrows, saluted his 
father more cordially than was his habit : “Good morn- 
ing, dear father.” 

It was long since Wendelin had heard these words 
“ dear father” from him. He surveyed him from head 
to foot, returned his greeting curtly, and said half to 
himself: “There is something to be asked for, I’m sure; 
a new coat, or a debt to be paid, or something of the 
sort.” 

John remained standing in perverse embarrassment. 
He kept smoothing his old hat with his hand, but could 
not get out a word. 

“ Where are you going now ?” his father asked him. 
“ Scarcely out of bed, and already going out of the 
house ! Eternal irregularity ! Now is the time for 
study. Yes, you ought to have been at it six hours 
ago, instead of turning night into day, and day into 
night.” 

“To the post-office, dear father,” answered John, as 
submissively as was possible for his malignant dispo- 
sition. But to-day every word gave the old man a fresh 
shock. 

“ Such a new luxury as that, too !” he burst out, “ to 
be receiving and sending letters every week — churches 
and hospitals might be built with the money. That is 
what is always planting fresh discontents in your head. 
Man of the age ! perhaps some such wits, without found- 


116 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


ation or principle, as that traveller for his pleasure, 
have been writing to you as an unhappy spirit, estranged 
from the world. And all that brings arrogant thoughts 
into your head. Your pride delights in all sorts of new 
systems, and you forget over it to get ready for your 
ministry and duty. When will you mount the pulpit 
again ? It’s two years already since you have preached. 
Depend upon it, one learns nothing from one’s self. It 
is practice that- makes the master.” 

“ Dear father,” answered John, I have fitted myself 
for an employment. I shall obtain one, although it 
may be different from yours. Only give me a little 
assistance, and I may hope to have found my vocation 
in my business. Here is a composition finished, which 
I am going to send to the Acp-demy, as a prize compe- 
tition. The theme was so luckily chosen : it has occu- 
pied me for years ; I must win the prize, and then I 
shall have money and reputation, and shall not want for 
a call to a situation — a professor’s chair. Only, dear 
father — and it is for this I am here — give me the half 
florin, to pay the postage.” 

‘‘ Academy ? Professor’s chair ? Still so high up 
there ? Still the old pride, the old imaginations. Didn’t 
you promise me to retrieve what you had lost in your 
theological studies ? Haven’t you told me every day 
that you had the Book of Homilies, and the Compendium 
of Church Eloquence before you, which would loosen 
your tongue ? And now, the prize composition ! Do 
you call that being honorable ? Is that keeping your 
word ?” 

“ I had to finish my task.” 


AN HONEST GHOST. 


117 


“ Had to ? Then you had not to lie. One of the 
two you had not to do.” 

“ No, both,” said John, restraining himself, but not 
without a spiteful tone. “ I had to finish my task, for 
my own destiny drove me to it ; and I had to lie, for to 
that my father’s destiny drove me. Perhaps it was 
for the best, after all, for I was able to work undis- 
turbed, and I spared you a pain.” 

‘‘ Excellent, excellent ! I can easily tell the soil of 
your studies by such fruits as these. Oh ! you are 
deeply versed in the spirit of the day. Truly, you 
might be my teacher, for I know not a word of that 
philosophy.” 

“ Only forgive me this once, dear father. The work 
will secure my honor; it will show of what spirit I am 
the offspring, and that I have done my duty in the vine- 
yard of mental labor — in the workshop of the world’s 
history. But, dear father, the application must be 
postpaid. Give but a half florin to me, and to the 
spirit of Spinoza.” 

“ Spinoza !” cried out the father. 

“Yes, Spinoza,” answered the son, smiling at his fa- 
ther’s orthodoxical terror. “ The essay is on Spinoza.” 

“ Spinoza !” continued the parson, who, up to this 
point, had seemed almost inclined to gentleness and 
consent ; and he repeated the word again and again, in 
a rage that was not unlike his son’s raving last night ; 
at least, so far as an inward suffering of soul was 
mingled with it, too, which betrayed that the parson 
must have been prompted to it by a deep-lying connec- 
tion of ideas. 


11 * 


118 THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 

Turning away, John answered, “ Spinoza, the great- 
est philosopher of modern times.” 

In unaltered tone, the old man continued ; ‘‘ Son, 
son, what madness has seized you ? Shall I see you 
fall irretrievably into ruin ? On Spinoza, indeed ! the 
heathen, the Jew — cursed even of Jews ! Spinoza, the 
atheist, the disowner of God I” 

‘‘Hold, it is not true!” exclaimed John, with fiery 
excitement. “ It is the ever-changing world that Spi- 
noza disowns, and not God. How can you reproach 
him with that ! Have you read any of his books ?” 

• “ God forbid that I should look into a Godless book. 
True belief has condemned him from all time. All 
my life long I have kept myself far from all poison of 
the spirit.” 

“ And is not such a judgment, before you have read 
him, a prejudice?” 

“Prejudice? Son, son!” said the parson, with almost 
tender sorrow ; “ let us not strive about that. Preju- 
dice or not, the question is not of that. Oh ! if you did 
but know it, I decide after a fact, after an experience 
which outweighs judgment and prejudice alike. Spi- 
noza ! Believe me, for your soul’s welfare; he is poison 
— temptation to infidelity, to pride, to sin, to self-mur- 
der.” 

“ To self-murder ! Father, father, it is you who are 
driving me to self-murder. Unbelief will not destroy 
me ; do you not destroy me with superstition. Yes, by 
my soul’s welfarOj father, push me not to extremities. 
Why must you always turn round the bad side of every- 
thing by force? Everything is good — the loveliest 
hopes beckon to me. I see my life’s barque entering the 


AN HONEST GHOST. 


119 


haven of its most blissful destiny. Only give me this 
single — this last half florin.” 

“ Never, never ! Give me here the piece.” 

“Never, never ! It is my property,” answered John, 
no longer repressing his scorn. 

“Are all my admonitions fruitless ?” 

“ Are all my arguments vain ?” 

“ Son, you are mad.” 

“ Father, you are mad.” So fell the words hard and 
harder still. The fiendish force of temperament which 
had collected itself in these two resolute characters, was 
let loose in both, in an unbridled outbreak. Like two 
beings who fought for life and death, this father and 
son stood opposite to each other. 

“The piece, the piece ! I demand it as thy father,” 
said the old man. 

“ And I keep it as my own master,” replied the son. 

“Now, then,” shrieked the old man, growing faint, as 
if losing his senses, “now, then, do you refuse your 
father’s request ? learn, then, to obey his power. The 
last resource remains to me yet ; I must answer for your 
life to God.” 

On the instant the parson stepped out of the room, 
and John lingered alone. The intoxication of last night 
had not entirely left him, and had contributed to in- 
crease his excitement. But he did not repent of his 
passion, now that he had recovered his self-possession. 

To day was the last time when he could put his prize 
composition in the post-office if he wished it to arrive 
in time. He could very easily have procured the half 
florin, even if he had been forced to sell his coat ; but 
he resolved, out of spite at his father, to send the packet 


120 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


unpaid, at the risk of having it returned, unopened, and 
of thus seeing his most beautiful, his last hopes anni- 
hilated. Yet, he meant to be his father’s debtor no 
longer. If this effort made his fortune, he would not 
have to thank him for it ; and if it were the wreck of 
his hopes, then his father was the cause ; and the 
hatred that he now felt so consumingly in his broken 
heart, would become a righteous one. 

Still dizzy with fearful, raging, heart-gnawing emo- 
tions, he left the room. He started for the post-office, 
but found the door locked. He went up to his chamber, 
and had scarcely passed the threshold, and drawn to the 
door behind him, when the key was turned from the out- 
side. The old man had craftily waited for him in a 
hiding-place, and, as soon as he had passed, locked him 
in his room. 

Wendelin now took an unheard-of step. He took it 
because the struggle of a whole lifetime was at stake. 
He went into the neighboring town, and returned with 
a magistrate and policeman. He told them they must 
confiscate the dangerous forbidden manuscript of his son. 
He made, it is true, a false representation of the magis- 
trate’s jurisdiction in the matter ; but that officer could 
not neglect, at the urgent entreaty of so worthy a man, 
at least to undertake a search. They ascended the 
stairs, opened the locked door, and — John was gone. 
The window was open, and the rope from the gable dis- 
closed the path he had taken. 

The officers searched the chamber, and found, to their 
astonishment and horror, up in a large book-press, the 
gown of a priest and the mask of the deformed bell- 
ringer of Notre Dame, side by side. The policeman 


AN HONEST GHOST. 


121 


recollected that he had seen both dresses last night at a 
wanton ball, and had thought the deviPs features under 
a priest’s gown a scoff at religion and spiritual things. 
They searched further, and found a number of copies of 
a forbidden old work, that had recently been re-edited, 
with a preface. It was called De tribus imfostoribus^ 
and its aim was to represent Moses, Christ, and Ma- 
homet as all on a level, and all deceivers. A search had 
long been carried on in vain, by the authorities, for the 
editor, and the composer of the preface, which was no 
less blasphemous. After a more minute investigation, a 
manuscript of this book was found, in John’s handwriting, 
with numerous alterations and corrections, that neces- 
sarily threw a heavy suspicion on the parson’s son, of 
being the editor of the book, as well as the writer of the 
preface. The young magistrate, who, in order to ad- 
vance himself, tried with all his might to make himself 
important in his office, declared the arrest of the sus- 
pected party indispensable. 

As John, therefore, returned from the post, the two 
seized him at the house-door, and carried him off to an 
examination. 

His poor mother fell down in a fainting fit. She re- 
covered from her fright to consciousness, but not from 
her grief to health ; and they carried her to her bed in 
a high fever. The parson retained his health and his 
self-possession; but an anguish was painted on his coun- 
tenance, more awful than his wife’s suffering. His color 
was pale as death, his dimmed eyes were deep-sunken 
and drawn down, his features immovably rigid, and occa- 
sionally contorted, when, with a convulsive movement, 
in which despair seemed to burst out from behind his 
tranquillity, he said to himself: “ (Edipus, (Edipus !” 


122 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


It was in this frame of mind that he received from the 
Ranger’s the letter in which Werner proposed for his 
daughter. He read it, and its contents did not seem to 
touch him. He folded it up, and thrust it into his pocket. 

As soon as Martha came home from the field, her 
father summoned her into the room. He shut both doors, 
took the letter out of his pocket, unfolded it, showed her 
the signature, Werner^ close before her face, and asked 
her: “Do you know anything of this letter?” The 
expression of his face gave Martha the horrible assurance 
that her father felt, and could feel, nothing of what lived 
in her heart, and had become the bliss and necessity of 
her life. 

Martha had but recently deceived her father, for the 
first time, about Werner’s simulated accident; but it was 
in terror, and from inconsideration. To-day she replied 
with cool, quiet deliberation, and with an appearance of 
the most ingenuous surprised innocence. “No, dear 
father ; what should I know about it ?” 

He probed her more and more keenly, but her dissimu- 
lation was only the more resolute and complete. 

The cloudy day within doors was followed by a night 
still more cloudy in the outer sky. The wind blew gusty 
and dry, and the wayfarer felt in his face and eyes the 
dust-clouds which he could not see. In more than one 
quarter of the distant heavens, frequent fiashes of light- 
ning lit up the agitated surface of the river, which you 
might hear roaring impetuo>usly. 

In spite of the storm, Martha’s dress rustled past the 
church, to the cross, and Werner caught her in his arms. 

“My father will not give me to you,” she said to him; 
“but I love you, dearest, you only and alone in the 
whole world.” 


FAIKY LIFE. 


123 


\ 


CHAPTER VI. 

FAIRY LIFE. 

It was a life which no mortal could fancy, and none 
disturb ; deeply revelling in all that belongs not to com- 
mon life, bathing itself in the moonlight, robing itself 
in the clouds, playing hide and seek behind the shadows 
of the forest, intoxicated with the fragrance of flowers, 
caressing over the graves — a real fairy life, singing out 
its joy with the nightingale, and vanishing with the lark; 
leaving no trace behind it but bent grass blades, which 
to-morrow raises up ; plucked flowers, that spend away 
their fragrance ; woven garlands, that adorn some tomb- 
stone, to surprise the mourner of next day. 

Martha was the flower-sprite who was living in her 
first spring; who had Jiitherto known nothing of the 
budding and fragrance of the blossom life ; and now, 
when the spring was blushfully surprising her with her 
own unfolding, her whole being pulsed towards it, as if 
she felt that she, too, must bloom away in this one 
spring, and could expect no other. 

But Werner was not the butterfly, which, waked by 
the spring, flutters carelessly over the sisterly flowers ; 
nor yet the boy, whose wantonness plucks them, and 
tears them to pieces for a play thing. He was the ma^ 
ture admirer, the intelligent lover, observant in his rap- 


124 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


tures, intoxicating himself in their fragrance 'svith a 
conscious self-forgetfulness, cherishing each bud into a 
blossom by his breath, and prizing as gold and pearls, 
each leaflet and each floweret, which he guards deep 
within his heart. 

As though her language had hitherto been hut a dream 
utterance, the involuntary expression of some laugh or 
sigh, and she were now first roused to perfect conscious- 
ness, Martha began to talk, not in protracted conver- 
sation, scarcely in finished sentences, often only in 
Vfords. But what* words they were ! Every word a 
pearl, drawn up from the deep ocean of her feeling, 
secretly and alone for him ; a blossom from the inmost 
depths of her heart, bursting and developed for him 
alone. He could only see the blossom, yet he could 
fancy how deep the roots must stretch into her nature ; 
and wondered over the strange richness of this germi- 
nating power of love. 

She almost always received him sportively at the door 
of the churchyard, although she had commenced this 
pleasantry, because she saw that he found her most 
attractive in it, and because she could thus prove what 
she was to him, and what power she had over him ; yet 
her flight and coyness at each renewed meeting, were 
not coquetry alone. They came from an ever present 
maiden fear, which presented itself anew in the course 
of each day’s separation, and always longed to be over- 
come afresh. 

Eor after their first kiss she would perhaps make some 
such remark as this : “ Is it possible that we have never 
met before?” and when he would jestingly reply, “Not 
that I was conscious of, if you take me for the man I 


FAIRY LIFE. 


125 


am;” she would rejoin: “In this world, perhaps not,” 
and would look at him with those large eyes, that had 
been growing more and more spirit-like since their inter- 
course, till, no matter how remote such a thought was 
from him, he would involuntarily lose himself in the 
contemplation of another world. Especially was this 
true, when she would confide to him all the presenti- 
ments, the dreams, the superstitions, that had linked her 
to a state of being not unlike the somnambulists ; and 
in which, only a few years since, she had many a time 
wandered through the house searching for something, 
that she forgot the instant she awoke. She once con- 
fessed to him that last night she had waked up, sitting 
up, and stretching her arms before her ; but — she con- 
fessed no further — she would not tell him that this time 
there was no distress, for she kncAV now towards whom 
her heart was reaching. 

The feeling she experienced was that grand, that holy, 
that consecrated enthusiasm of love; in whose estimation 
this present, that outweighed all past and future alike, 
and in which her whole life seemed to be concentrating 
into one vast inward happiness, appeared too rich, too 
weighty, too boundless, for an existence where all is 
fragmentary. It was in the union with another world, 
that she sought for its explanation and its basis. 

“ I feel at last what it is to live,” said Martha, once ; 
and another time she asked Werner : “ Had you no pre- 
sentiment that you would meet me, when you came down 
to the stream,* and saw me for the first time?” And 
clinging round his neck would whisper to him : “ Believe 
me, dearest, I should have died if you had not come.” 

At one of their meetings she exclaimed : “ Is it not 

12 


126 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


strange, that men should torment themselves so ? Oh ! if 
they only knew how beautiful it is to be happy.” 

“The world,” was Werner’s answer, “is but the mir- 
ror of the man. As we are ourselves, so life appears to 
us. Our own will is all that is wanting to make us 
happy.” 

“ And we will be happy,” she shouted out, “ we will 
live on eternally thus.” 

There was a pause of thoughtful contemplation, which 
Werner interrupted. “There is no eternity in love; 
there are only hours, and each hour we must seek our 
happiness afresh. We have known happy hours, and it 
is my care that we may have them henceforward, and 
often ; for well indeed do you deserve to enjoy them.” 

“ Oh ! but I am so perfectly happy in loving you,” 
she whispered. 

“And yet there is a joy greater even than to love 
thus — to be thus loved.” 

With all this, they never lost themselves in a weak 
sentimentality. Werner’s love for Martha was only pos- 
sible in the fact that, with all her delicacy, he had never 
found her morbidly sentimental. There was nothing 
that he banished from his own mind on principle, with a 
more cruel disregard, than fretfulness, and melancholy ; 
with all his tenderness he was so genuine a man. 

When the loved one would grow a little transcend- 
ental, he never opposed ; for he amused himself in the 
play of her fancy ; but he knew how to set it bounds, 
to give it a background, and to lead her over gradually 
to his own partiality. He would say flattering things 
to her ; compare her advantageously with the ladies of 
the great world; grow bitter against that continual diplo- 


FAIRY LIFE. 


127 


macy and perfidy, whicli are undermining the existence 
of the higher classes, and of every condition of public 
life ; would speak hard words against the universal lies, 
by which even love itself is falsified ; and then settle into 
a short and gloomy abstraction. 

Martha would then try to find out what troubled him, 
and would suggest that he must be mourning over some 
faithless flame. No, no,” he would burst out : ‘‘ I have 
never loved; you are my first, my only love; the only 
one who has ever loved me, whom I have ever truly loved. 
You are all this, my lovely, my sweet Rhine-nymph, my 
loveliest elf, my sportive flower-sprite.” 

But Martha was wilful, and would not believe him. 
She looked into his face with waggish mistrust, and si- 
lently shook her head. He tried to punish her want of 
faith with a kiss ; but she sprang up, and hurried away, 
enticing him on with a sportive look of mischievous exult- 
ation. He followed her, and thus they would flit along 
over the graves out of the churchyard ; and then, when 
he had caught her, they would stroll below along the 
margin of the river ; or Martha would accompany him 
into the wood towards the Banger’s house, and he 
her back again ; bidding their mutual good-by, through 
many a lingering hour. But the blush of morning would 
streak the East, and the lark’s carol and the cock’s crow 
parted them from this united delight, to solitary repose. 

At the churchyard gate, there was a fresh leave to 
be taken ; and Werner broke a spray from the flowering 
lilacs overhead. Martha cooled her glowing face in its 
dewy blossoms, and whispered with a voice full of feel- 
ing, and of deep, intelligent significance : ‘‘ Surely, the 
spring was never so beautiful as now !” Werner snatched 


128 


THE ROSE OE THE PARSONAGE. 


the sprig from her, pressed his face in it with ecstasy, 
kissed away the dew, and hid it in his bosom. But Mar- 
tha clung to him, and to the flower ; kissed the flower, 
and kissed him ; and exclaimed with transport, Oh ! 
how sweetly do they bloom — these flowers ! and we are 
so, so happy.” 

He rested his hand on her head, and she offered a 
silent prayer from his breast. He could feel her bosom 
heave higher — and still higher. She separated herself 
gently from him, and tried to press back its emotion 
with her hand ; saying, at the same time, with a sigh : 
“ I was never happy till now, but I was never miserable 
either ; now you have brought me happiness, and it is 
now that I could first feel unhappiness.” 

But she did not believe it herself, as she tripped joy- 
ously back to the house, over the grave-mounds. As a 
child, she had deeply imbibed the melancholy of this 
spot. A yearning after the roots of those flowers had 
nestled itself in her heart ; and after sitting once for a 
long time in the churchyard, she had run into the house 
in tears ; and could not compose herself till she was 
hanging round her mother’s neck. She had followed 
her roving fancy so far, that she thought she had been 
weeping on her mother’s grave. 

With what exultation, however, did she now inhale 
the fragrance of the grave-flowers, and scarce touched 
the earth, carried on by her high-swelling heart. Her 
love was in truth, by the romantic seclusion and solitude 
of its meetings, lifted so far above all contact with 
earthly things, and every relation with actual life and 
earthly necessities, that the feeling was unavoidable 
that she was soaring high above them all. She remem- 


FAIRY LIFE. 


129 


bered to have once seen a balloon ascend, and seemed 
now to experience the joy of just such a cloud-journey. 
But there were times, and that often, when her dizziness 
could not be repressed. 

In the morning, when her father’s voice pierced harsh- 
ly through her dreams, and the clear sun glistened so 
keenly on the cold walls, she would hold her hands before 
her eyes again and again, and try to call back the fading 
dream ; still, it was impossible to live wholly in herself. 
The call is repeated, and she must obey it. But how 
hard was the struggle still, to persuade herself that the 
bright day was a dream; that the converse with her 
lover, the fairy life among the graves, that those were 
the reality. Yet, the small steep stairs must again be 
descended, the sitting-room must be again entered, the 
morning’s coffee prepared, and she must collect herself, 
so that no thoughtful or saddened face may betray her 
dream-life to her father. 

Even her life in the family, where she attended to 
those household duties that once had been performed 
with thoughtless indifference, appeared to her now as 
though she had come among beings wholly strange. 
Everything was new to her, for she regarded it with a 
different eye. A clear view opened to her, her self- 
consciousness was aroused ; she began to observe, to cri- 
ticize. Everything that her fancy once told her she 
loved, was now insufferable to her; and she felt con- 
strained to love what she had heretofore regarded with 
aversion. 

It was not a comparison with that rapture-life of her 
own that made this mode of existence repulsive. She 
would have gladly toiled ; and if she could have secured 
12 * 


130 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


that happiness as the reward of her labor, she would 
have almost anticipated it in the toil itself. She com- 
pared her life with life in the Ranger’s house, where 
she had taken her first taste of happiness, and had 
learned to thirst for it. Before now, she had believed 
that everything must go on as it did in her parent’s 
house; either because God so ordained it, or because all 
was so perfect. But now a want was manifest in that 
life where labor was so destitute of cheerfulness, and 
repose heard no word of affection. She shuddered at 
the reverential awe that stifled every other life-emotion. 
She felt the coldness and emptiness of this life, even in 
its smallest manifestations. How she envied Lenette 
her cheerfulness over her task, and her jokes with the 
maid and the forester; while with their own morose 
Kate, she could never exchange a word all day. Could 
it be, she asked herself, because she had not the faculty 
of drawing out talk ? 

The soup, to be sure, was richer, and the dishes more 
select than in the Ranger’s poorer household; but she 
did not relish them, without a word of friendship, with- 
out merriment, without conversation, and with that stiff 
and ever-stiffening earnestness. Even the love of her 
mother, who was now reclining in her easy-chair, more 
feeble than ill after her misguided son’s disaster, brought 
neither confidence nor joy. Her lamentations for her 
son were ceaseless. While he was at home, she had 
never shown any more tenderness towards him than they 
all showed for each other; and beyond her motherly 
solicitude for the necessary concerns of his life, he was 
as good as indifferent to her. But now she called him 
her dearest child; the only man who had always been 


FAIRY LIFE. 


131 


kind and good to her; and declared she should die, now 
that he was taken from her. 

An irrepressible feeling of sorrow seized Martha at 
the sight of this love, which was so wholly love that it 
had in itself no vital energy, nor desire to do anything 
for the beloved object ; hut could only break together in 
itself, when it had lost a heart whose possession it never 
would have known how to prize. 

“And is there but one heart, only one?” Martha 
would ask herself ; and she had to reply, that hers too 
was a heart that must be torn away from the mother. 
Still, though she thought of the sorrow she must cause, 
yet no consideration would have tempted her to sink 
again into that miserably unhappy life which threatened 
her, and this feeling made it almost impossible to look 
her mother in the face. Dearly as she loved her, she had 
to evade her. On one occasion, her mother stretched 
out her hand, as Martha was mixing some cooling drink 
for her, and said, through sorrow and debility : “ You 
will remain for my comfort, my good, my darling child?” 
Yet Martha did not kneel before her — did not kiss her 
hand, hut setting down the drink, left the room, under 
pretence of some occupation, and gave the care of her 
mother to the servant. She attended secretly, however, 
to all the housekeeping which required it, and strove 
thus to apologize beforehand for her disobedience, and 
the pain of separation she was yet destined to inflict. 

If her mother’s look disquieted her at the thought 
of this rupture, her father’s placed its inevitahleness 
continually before her. Her exhausted appearance, the 
pallor of her complexion, and her moist-gleaming eyes, 
had excited his observation; and his stern and solicitous 


132 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


gaze was continually upon her. But she now recognized 
the whole life that spoke from out it ; that solemnity and 
anxiety which had hitherto ruled her existence, as the 
malignant foe of her present happiness ; the oppression 
from which she must escape, to belong wholly to it. 
Formerly, she believed that she loved her father ; but 
now she felt nothing in her heart but a longing to escape 
from him. 

She now began to comprehend her brother, and felt 
drawn to him, whom she had hitherto despised — had 
wished elsewhere, as the disturber of their family quiet. 
She felt that she, like him, had experienced a father’s 
harshness, and she longed to be banished along with him 
as an accomplice. Even in church, she listened to her 
father in a totally different temper. His sermon gave 
her no satisfaction. A very different inspiration was 
now in her thoughts ; and when he uttered the word 
love, how utterly did it want the powerful significance 
of that which she knew. She felt that she could have 
mounted the pulpit herself, and have poured thence her 
overflowing heart down upon the congregation ; but not 
in words; only in interminable, unutterable feelings, and 
these she could have poured out like flames. 

It was Sunday week after the catastrophe with her 
brother. Eight days more had been consumed in that 
love existence, and with what altered feelings did she 
again enter the church. She must have deceived her- 
self, when fancying that the balloon which bore her soul 
aloft was so free, so wholly loosed from earthly bands. 
Her mother’s kindness, her father’s dignity, were bands 
that still bound her to this existence invisibly, but fear- 
fully fast, and shook the proud and airy sky-wanderer 


FAIRY-LIFE. 


133 


many a time "with violence, till she grew dizzy almost to 
the loss of reason. A deathlike shudder would come 
over her at the thought that she must fall, and be dashed 
to pieces on the earth. 

This distressing feeling seized her the next Sunday, 
as she bade her father good-night. She had not given 
him her wonted kiss for the last few days ; for she could 
not do it from inclination, and would not from hypocrisy. 
The pretence of attending to her household duties had 
hitherto enabled her to obviate the necessity of an 
adieu — but to-night her father asked it from her. He 
reached out his hand to her, and asked why she no 
longer wished him good-night ; suggested that perhaps 
she had not thought that he set any store by this token 
of affection, and then called her “my good child,” and 
stroked her hair, while a soft inward sigh swelled upon 
his lips. This experience that she was loved was an 
arrow in Martha’s heart. Giddy with suffering, she 
threw herself, after this scene, upon her lover’s breast. 
It was her peculiar, high-swelling emotion alone that had 
exalted her so high, and when it subsided she fell pros- 
trate to the ground. In pain and agitation, she wept 
passionately upon Werner’s breast. He tried to console 
her, but her tears were only the more violent. At last 
he grew impatient: “ Do not weep, my child ; for heaven’s 
sake don’t weep,” he said; “a weeping woman is as 
fearful to me as one that is careless about her hair.” 

She could not understand so hard a speech as this, 
but she thought he must be right. She dried her tears, 
and rushed into the stupefaction of her emotions. She 
drew in with all her might the breath of love ; inhaled 
the atmosphere of bliss into the inmost depths of her 


134 


THE ROSE OP THE PARSONAGE. 


soul ; longed to live, but only in intoxication, or on 
some dizzying height. Never had her words of love 
been uttered with such glowing overflow, with such flam- 
ing ardor. She had been till now the timid maiden, 
who only grants her fondnesses ; but now she seemed 
the passionate woman, who demanded them. 

Werner understood her, and a bolder freedom now for 
the first time intruded on the more elevated tone of their 
intercourse. He covered her with kisses, sank on the 
ground before her, clasped her knee, and asked : ‘‘ Let 
me kiss the little foot, Martha, the foot that first trans- 
ported me.’’ Pale, trembling, powerless, she sank in 
his arms. He kissed her still more eagerly, but her 
consciousness awaked. She released herself with a half- 
ejaculated cry of alarm ; her strength carried her but a 
few steps further ; she tottered and fell, with her burning 
face among the cool grass of a grave-hillock. 

Werner knelt low beside her as she rose, and, implor- 
ing forgiveness, kissed the hem of her apron. Still 
trembling with fright, she sought rest on her couch, fell 
asleep with a weariness like death, and waked in 
anguished terror, for she had had a dream that had 
caused a blush. 

She longed to cover her face and pray in solitude, but 
it could not be. She must don the Sunday dress, 
arrange her hair, put on the straw hat with its little 
rose, and walk to church with a countenance smooth and 
inexpressive as she might. 

As she was about to leave the house, her mother, who 
could not yet venture the walk to service, said to her : 
“ Pray for your brother, my child, that he may grow 


FAIRY LIFE. 


135 


better.” She meant to pray for him ; hut not as the 
mother meant, for him and for herself together. 

The organ melody commenced, and as its full tones 
swelled upon her, her heart heat passionately, and her eye 
overflowed, hut she restrained herself. She thought of 
what Dora, what the neighbors, what the whole village 
would say, if they saw her tears. They would impute 
to her an unhappy love, perhaps even a maiden error. 
She could not weep like a young girl to-day, for that 
was only fitting at confirmation, and the chief festivals, 
and New Year’s day. She did not weep, but immured 
her gloomily within herself. She had once seen a dif- 
ferent mode of praying, in a Catholic Church ; and a wish 
rose now in her heart to kneel alone upon a jpriedieu^ in 
some dusky chapel, and empty her sorrows before God. 
As her father preached of original sin, of the corruption 
of the human heart — in which every joyous and free 
motion must be repressed, because it degenerates into 
ruin — then she closed her heart defiantly against his 
words. His heart knew nothing of those sins to which 
hers responded ; what were these words to her ! 

Her lover had now and then scoffed at religion, and 
the church; but at the time, she had not understood 
him. Now, however, as she listened to this sermon, 
that seemed to her so cold, so poor, so little penetrating 
into human nature, and perceived how deeply it pierced 
the old women, whose privilege it was, every Sunday, 
to make their tear-offering to the Lord, amid the 
screeching of the psalmody — now, she understood Wer- 
ner’s superciliousness. She turned contemptuously from 
this devotion ; she needed for herself, for her own fate, 
a very different religion — a religion of her own. 


136 


THE HOSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


Martha was, indeed, carried by her swelling heart 
out into other regions. She looked down proudly on 
the whole world — proudly, yet solitary ; clinging, yet 
fearful; for she had nothing in that giddy height, hut 
her lover — and she would clasp him, yes, though she 
thrust all else from her — eternally clasp him tightly to 
her heart. She felt, too, a joyful courage to tear away 
everything that separated her from him — to break with 
father, with mother; yes, even with the very God to 
whom she had hitherto prayed. The waves of organ- 
music bore her on in these emotions, and her prayer 
went forth to the God of her love. A boundless hap- 
piness arose from the spirituality of her religion — a 
boundless strength from the consciousness of her resolve. 

Oh ! blissful period of the conception of a great 
thought — of an unalterable resolve ; when the spirit- 
swollen heart imagines itself so exhaustless that its en- 
ergy must sweep over every obstacle; when it sees itself 
capable of sacrificing its whole existence to a single act, 
without which it feels it must sink to nothingness, and 
with it achieve the conquest of another world; — an act 
in which lurks no injustice, so necessary is its accom- 
plishment ; in which all the duties of human life are 
fulfilled, so exhaustless is its value. Oh, blissful time, 
that is capable of such inspiration, and such delusion — 
such energy, and such crime ! 

Martha crossed the threshold of the church, into 
every-day life, her heart elated by the organ^s roar, and 
by the courage of her love ; but she soon discovered, 
with affright, how easy it is to collect one’s energy for 
some mighty passion, but how discouragingly hard and 
painful to extort an authority for it from reality, step 


FAIRY LIFE. 


137 


by step; and how 'a strong heart, which could have borne 
a heavy blow, may be shivered by countless little ones. 

Cousin Andrew returned with them from church, and 
remained to dinner. He had not visited the parsonage 
since Ascension-day — that interrupted festival of his 
betrothal — and the parson took him to task for it. An- 
drew excused himself frankly, with business, accounts 
to be made up, copies, documents, &c. “ Something 

must be going on with our young countess,” said he; 

“ perhaps she is going to marry ; but when she marries, * 
you know, uncle, the old upper bailiff must give up his 
lease, and I shall be promoted to independent Inspector, 
for life. But as to my not having been here so often 
as formerly, I have been unwell — out of humor ; and, 
to speak with all due candor, I have not been perfectly 
certain that I didn’t intrude, at the parsonage — that I 
should be so particularly well received as heretofore ; I 
mean since the strange gentleman has been your guest.” 

In this way he twisted about in a circle, coming gra- 
dually nearer to the point. The parson asked him why 
the stranger should trouble him; and he answered, 
slowly : Because — because — ^you see, uncle, some of 
us don’t amuse ourselves any too well with such a fine 
gentleman, because he — ” and he smiled when he said 
this, as if it were some harmless witticism ; “ because 
he amuses himself only too well with the young ladies. 
Yes, yes, such a gentleman as he understands that.” 

The old man indignantly asked him whether he meant 
anything by this ; but the crafty cousin answered, in his 
best-humored tone : Heaven forbid ! How should I 
mean anything — how could I mean anything ? Least 
13 


138 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


of all would I be so bad as to mean wbat ill-disposed 
folks say.” 

This struck the old man; he started up and demanded 
what it was that people said. Andrew now tried to 
quiet him, and continued uninterruptedly, in his former 
tone. “ Uncle, bad folks will be bad ; but of what con- 
sequence in the world is it to us what people say ? It 
does seem extraordinary, I must confess, that this 
strange no-body-knows-who should take up his quarters 
at the Ranger’s, where he made my cousin’s acquaint- 
ance ; should follow her through every road and by- 
path ; should penetrate, at last, into this house, as a sick 
man, in whom nobody could detect any sickness ; and, 
after he has left here, should ensconce himself again at 
the Ranger’s, and now and then show himself prowling 
round the parsonage.” 

This was what he was endeavoring to bring to the 
parson’s notice, by spoonsful, as it were, and without 
appearing to desire to excite suspicion. Wendelin as- 
sured him the thing should be put a stop to; and Andrew 
gave it, as his opinion, that, on Martha’s account, it 
would be desirable ; for there was, certainly, something 
more in the stranger, than folks knew of. He had a 
nobleman’s coat of arms worked into his handkerchief; 
and people thought he was a prince, and already began 
to call Martha princess. Martha came into the room at 
this moment, and he kissed her hand with malicious 
familiarity, and called her his dear betrothed. 

When he took his leave, the parson gave him his 
hand, and wished him adieu with the words : “ Take 
nothing amiss. All will go on as usual, and we are 
still friends as ever. Let us see you oftener.” 


FAIRY LIFE. 


139 


The next instant Wendelin was seated at his desk, 
and writing to Werner, whom he had not yet thought 
worthy of a reply. His letter called him a vagabond 
and a coxcomb, and took the liberty of requesting him 
to quit the neighborhood. 

Martha saw at once, by her father’s look, that some- 
thing had happened, in which Andrew was concerned, 
and that a storm was brewing over her. She was right. 
Her cousin’s announcement had concentrated all the 
parson’s suspicions, which had been gathering since the 
last meeting, into a deep anxiety. In addition to her 
pale face, her colder and more indifferent manner, there 
was her late sleeping, her frequent distraction, her 
often sudden change from joy to gloom ; and these had 
given him food for reflection. She had heard nothing 
of his conversation with Andrew, and he called her to 
his side. A limitless anxiety seized her. “ What if 
our love should be discovered,” flashed across her as he 
asked her — 

“Do you know that the stranger. Monsieur Werner, 
is still staying at the Ranger’s?” 

She blushed, but collected herself, and said with 
firmness, “ No.” 

He looked so steadily into her face that her eyes 
were forced to droop, and he said, more searchingly 
than before : “ Look at me ; look me firmly in the eye, 
Martha, and answer me. Have you not spoken a word 
with him while he was staying here ? Have you not 
heard from him or seen him since he left us ?” 

“No,” she replied, looking at him without shrinking, 
but she felt the blood retreating from her cheeks. 

Wendelin grasped his daughter’s hand, regarded her 


140 


THE BOSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


intently, as if he would penetrate her inmost heart, and 
said in a mild, entreating tone : “ Daughter, my daugh- 
ter, tell me all, confide all to me ; I am your father, 
your loving father.” 

His manner cut her to the heart. She was frightened, 
and would have gladly cried out, thrown herself at his 
feet, confessed all, and implored his forgiveness of all ; 
hut she looked into his stern gloomy eyes ; and although 
her gaze, which was turned on her father, full of unheard 
of falsehood, seemed like the venomous bite of a snake, 
that she was fastening upon his heart, yet she did not 
cast down her eyes, but repeated afresh: “No, no, no ! 
I know nothing of him.” 

But the instant she uttered these words, she stood 
before herself so low, so humiliated, so criminal, that 
she was on the very point of denying them again, when 
her father harshly interrupted her : “ Child ! child ! is 
it the serpent that speaks in thee ?” 

She was again herself ; affection and candor were 
gone. 

“ Get well, mother,” said the old man : “ In four 
weeks we shall have a wedding in the house. In four 
weeks, my daughter, your- bridegroom will take you to 
his home. All intercourse with the Ranger’s house,” 
he commanded in addition, “ must be broken off. I 
permit no more association with those vulgar people, 
who do nothing hut eat and drink from morning till 
night. That is their whole life. Your principles shall 
not be corrupted there.” 

Martha summoned up all her defiance against this. 
She recognized no obligation towards this paternal love. 
This father was no longer her father. 


FAIRY LIFE. 


141 


That evening she listened more cautiously than ever 
in her chamber, till all were at rest. She heard the 
servant bring in the fresh water for the night, and her 
father shut the house-door. Clattering along in his 
down-at-heel slippers, he next made his nightly round 
through the house ; she heard him go down stairs, close 
the door of the sitting-room first, and then of his own 
bedchamber. She looked out of the window, and per- 
ceived by the vanishing refiection on the opposite garden 
wall, that his candle was extinguished, heard him cough, 
as he always did on lying down, and then all was still — 
he was asleep. 

She now untied her house apron, placed a nosegay on 
her bosom, glided light as a cat down stairs, and looked 
for the house-key on its accustomed nail, but to-night it 
was not there. The parson’s precaution had removed 
it. She lingered but an instant, crept along into the 
large sitting-room, opened the window, jumped out, and 
— was in the outer air so easily, that nothing but the 
beating of her heart was audible. Trembling with ap- 
prehension and desire, she found repose and consolation 
on her lover’s breast. 

They stood by the declivity. White fog-shapes were 
rising from out of the stream, nodding to each other, 
rolling hither and thither, and ever ascending higher ; 
so that they already touched the edge of the bank. They 
were absorbed in observing this spectacle, until Werner 
again settled into his gloomy abstraction. Martha did 
not interrupt him, but watched him ; and as he seemed 
scarcely conscious of her vicinity, and his brow was con- 
tracting more and more darkly ; she threw her arms in 
distress around his neck, and begged him to confess to 
13 * 


142 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


her what it was that so often overshadowed him, and 
now more darkly than ever. 

“ It is nothing, nothing!” he replied evasively; but 
the sigh that swelled from his breast confuted him. 

“ Something must be wrong with you, dear. Tell it to 
me, Werner,” she implored him, and it will be lighter 
to you. Something I am sure must have happened to 
you, for you were never as you are this evening. Will 
they separate us ? Oh 1 if you have cause for suffering, 
I have it too ;” and now she told him her interview with 
her father. “ But I do not complain; for I am so happy 
as long as you are so dear — and you are happy so long 
as no one can separate us ; but, Werner, that you are so 
distressed ” 

“You are right, my child, you are right. I will not 
be troubled. No I no ! nothing shall sever us. If your 
father will not give you to me, I shall find right enough 
in your own dear self to possess you. If he will not 
prepare for you the happiness of your life, you shall 
still receive it at my hands. Yes ! what can prevent 
me from being happy ? Why am I free, if I may not 
employ my freedom in judging for myself? I am suffi- 
cient for myself ; and there is Genius in not troubling 
one’s self about the whole wmidd. Have you the cou- 
rage, Martha, to follow me into the world ; to leave 
father and mother for my sake ? Oh ! I know that you 
have, for your heart is a true genial woman’s heart. I 
will be worthy. The door stands open. To-morrow 
night I can take you thence, my pretty captive, and we 
fly to a new existence.” 

She clung ardently to him, and rested close upon his 
bosom. The cloud-shapes had rolled themselves up, and 


FAIRY LIFE. 


143 


enveloped, ■with their long trails, the ground with its 
walls and tombstones. Martha pointed it out to him in 
astonishment, and exclaimed, “Ah! ah! see, we are 
standing above the clouds.” 

She was trembling with cold and ecstasy. Werner 
threw his white handkerchief round her shoulders, and 
strained her close to his warm breast. Hitherto, Mar- 
tha’s love had been obliged to reach out into her fancy, 
but now her fancy reached over into her love. She was 
silent, clinging closely to him. She felt that he prized 
her innocence ; and that a sure fulfilment of all her 
bliss was beckoning to them from the near future. 
There was an inward harmony between the pair; not 
now the sportive joyousness, nor the transcendental 
reverie ; but the still, sweet 'dreamings of an anticipative 
bridal love. 

The rosy dawn frightened away the moon and the 
clouds, and it frightened them too from their fondling. 
Martha hurried towards the house, and clambered up 
the few slats of a vine trellis to her window. As she 
paused here, in order to let herself down noiselessly into 
her room, a strong arm grasped her; a pale countenance, 
with dismal, familiar eyes, looks searchingly into her face ; 
the father has detected his daughter. 

A single exclamation escaped his lips; “Alas ! alas! 
Thou then art the victim !” 


144 


THE KOSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


CHAPTER VII. 

ORIGINAL SIN. 

Martha heard not a single word of unkindness from 
her father’s lips. She left her chamber earlier than 
usual the following morning, that she might not give 
him the least occasion for severity; hut she was alarmed 
at perceiving him sitting in his dressing-gown, and but 
half-dressed, just as he had left her in the night. He 
looked as if he had not been in bed since, and his alarm 
was even more visible than her own. He avoided her 
gaze timidly, and in agitation ; and when she re-entered 
the room, after having been called out of it by some 
occupation, he had disappeared. Not a single word 
during the whole day made allusion to the occurrence, 
so that her mother never heard of it; and it was evident 
that he avoided her at every opportunity. 

This discovery had torn Martha away from her para- 
dise, and she felt once more the necessity of thinking 
and feeling as she used to do, and of criticizing her own 
actions, as this earth’s life requires. At the time when 
she had deceived her father, she had disregarded the 
sin ; but her shame became inevitable, now that he had 
detected her falsehood. What would she not have given 
now if he had been stern and morose; for she could 
then have set herself defiantly against him, and ap- 


ORIGINAL SIN. 


145 


pealed to the right of her own higher and unappreci- 
ated life of feeling. But now that he was so gentle, so 
conciliatory ; and what a victory, thought she, it must 
have cost him over himself that he, who always punished 
trifling offences with such severity, should forgive his 
daughter the greatest fault she could have committed ; 
now she perceived the whole enormity of her guilt. 
Nothing had power now to shield her from the anguish 
of having wounded his love. 

She could not explain herself to her father, and sought 
for some clue to his behavior. She tried more than 
once to believe that the night meeting had been only the 
creation of a dream, or some spectral vision, and to 
persuade herself that he did not suspect her relation 
with the stranger, and had mistaken her entrance through 
the window for sleep-walking. But the sorrow that 
rested on his features forbade her to believe it ; and 
then — since when had he taken to sadness instead of 
anger ? 

She did not know him, just as no one knew him, of 
all who ventured an opinion about him. Isolation had 
given him this harsh, rough outside ; but what fate had 
impelled him to that seclusion, and what gentle, sensitive 
interior, like the inmost kernel of this rugged husk, had 
served only to swell its induration, that no one knew. 
Martha had yet to learn it, in a conversation that was 
destined startlingly to reverse the whole current of her 
life. 

In trembling and fear, she had worn through the day 
over her housekeeping duties, attending to them with 
the greatest care, but yet only mechanically. The 
dread was ever present that her father’s righteous anger 


146 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


must burst out volcanically against her. She trembled 
when she met his gaze, and her heart could scarcely 
thank him enough when he avoided her. It almost 
seemed as if he were himself abashed before her ; so 
mild, so utterly free from anger was his look. He 
appeared often to be upon the very point of speaking, 
but she would not come. He was fighting a bitter fight, 
for he must speak confidentially with his child. 

Evening came at last, and how beneficent to Martha 
seemed the dusk that hid her from his look. What a 
weight was lifted from her heart, when her work was at 
last finished, and she could retire to her chamber. Con- 
science, no less than her despondency, forbade her 
going to-night to the fond rendezvous ; and she threw 
herself on her bed, and, weary to death, sighed for a 
long, long sleep. But rest would not come at this hour, 
already become unwontedly early to her. Hot and rapid 
shot the blood through her veins; restless and wild 
surged the thoughts through her soul. The form of 
the threatening father, interchanged with that of . the 
calling lover ; her own sharp conscience-throb mingled 
itself with the yearning for his sweet kisses. Ah ! if 
ever he were to be her support and stay, it should have 
been in this hour ; if ever his sympathy were necessary, 
it was in this conflict. She longed to spring up and fly 
to him, even by the dangerous path through the window, 
and though she should never more return to her home ; 
but the reflection still intruded: “To-day! shall I sin 
again to-day !” She felt that if, after her father’s 
unexampled kindness, she could again disobey, she was 
indeed lost ; a being not worthy the affection of a father, 
no, not even of her lover. The crime that she could 


ORIGINAL SIN. 


14T 


perpetrate against her parent, and such a parent, might 
she not be capable of the Same against her husband ; yes, 
even against her own children ? 

She buried her head in her pillow, and wept hot, inex- 
haustible tears, and longed for her sufferings to consume 
themselves away, even though they destroyed her own 
life too. It would have been a relief to weep all night, 
but the morrow was before her ; that morrow when she 
must rise, and watch, and act, and be cheerful ; and how 
could she do this in her father’s presence, however silent 
he might be ? With that consciousness of guilt, that 
yearning after the object of her love, she could not do 
it ; she could never do it more. No outlet presented 
itself. She raised herself up in bed, wrung her hands 
together, folded them in prayer, then wrung them again, 
and pressed them before her eyes ; her face sunk in the 
pillow, her thoughts in the fathomless depths of her 
distress. 

While she was thus weeping, the image of Werner 
rose before her soul, as he stood waiting for her outside 
of the churchyard. He must have been waiting long, 
for his countenance looked indignant that she did not 
come. He seemed about to turn away, to depart — for- 
ever! Under the influence of this fancy, she raised 
herself erect, half dreaming and half through passion, 
stretched her arms again out before her, and cried aloud: 
“Stay I oh, stay !” 

She waked at her own cry, and terror paralyzed her, 
for she heard an answer. “ Be still, be quiet ; what 
ails thee ?” A form was sitting by her bedside, and 
she recognized her father. How gently he had stepped . 


148 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


into the chamber, that he might not wake the mother, 
who sleeps in the room below. 

She gazed at him. His face was so deeply furrowed, 
so depressed with sorrow, all sternness so completely 
banished from it, that he seemed in the darkness much, 
very much older, and she almost doubted if it were 
really he. 

‘‘ Be quiet, my daughter,” he said, ‘‘be quiet;” and 
she knew her father by the words. Each looked at the 
other, but neither spoke. Two souls looked out at each 
other from four eyes ; souls that had lived together all 
their lives, yet did not know each other. Each was 
striving to look into the deep of the other’s thoughts ; 
for it was the turning of a life’s destiny, that each was 
awaiting in the other. 

After a long oppressive pause, Wendelin began : “ Do 
you know how my father died ?” 

Martha was about to reply, of a hemorrhage; but he 
interrupted her: “You know nothing of it. He had 
studied so long over the writings of that God-disowner, 
Spinoza, that his mind became unhung, and God punished 
him through himself. He seized a razor, and cut his 
throat.” 

He paused silently a few moments, and then con- 
tinued : “ Do you know how my father’s father died ?” 
He gave her no time for reply, but said : “ He was an 
alchemist, and he toiled to find the philosopher’s stone. 
Time, tranquillity, money, all were squandered in his 
investigations; his laboratory was beneath our kitchen; 
debt overtook him, and he brought his fruitless life to 
a close. He threw himself from yonder stone cross 


ORIGINAL SIN. 


149 


into the stream. The people believe that the evil spirit 
carried him off.” 

Again there was a pause still more depressing, and 
the father went on. “ Do you know how your father’s 
elder brother died ? lie was the perfection of youthful 
beauty. Like you in his face, and in the color of his 
hair ; earnestness and gentleness were blended in him. 
But Hugo had the stamp of greatness ; a pride that 
reached to arrogance ; and it was the sole possession by 
which he won the heart of a young countess of his day. 
Each loved the other, but he understood her not as she 
intended. She married in accordance with her parent’s 
wishes, and he — pined away with a consuming disease, 
but a few months later.” 

There was another pause. Martha scarcely dared to 
breathe aloud. The two pair of eyes looked into each 
other, through the dimness of the night, more and more 
spiritually. A deep soul-life began to shine over out of 
one, into the other. Her father spoke. “And what 
was it that drove them all to so horrible an end ? It 
was the sinful blood, that could not find repose in the 
fulfilment of its duties ; the arrogance of an impetuous 
free spirit, which struggled out beyond its limits, and 
set man in the place of God. It was the Demon of 
talent, of intellectual might ; the same tempter who led 
Christ to the temple, and said to him : “ Lo ! all this is 
thine, if thou wilt obey me.” Ah! I too have felt this 
sinful blood in my veins, which seems to have descended 
from race to race. I too have stood on that eminence, 
and let the tempter point out before me the wide expanse. 
It was when I visited my father, in a vacation of the 
University. Far removed from any subjection of my- 
14 


150 


THE ROSE OE THE PARSONAGE. 


self to the restraints of life, drunk with the intoxicating 
cup of liberal science, I could not set my limits wide 
enough. Infected by the impure poetry of the time, I 
could not rate high enough the enjoyment of those 
unbridled wantons of the soul. All commonplace life 
was contemptible to me ; every fulfilment of appointed 
duty despicable ; morality and self-restraint odious. And 
hurled in wild disorder hither and thither, between plan- 
less labor and inexhaustible debauchery ; finding con- 
tent, repose, and peace nowhere ; I saw no end before 
me, but to perish in dissipation, or consume away in toil. 
The thought of self-murder began to tempt me. At that 
moment my brother’s fate came before my father and 
myself. My father found no consolation in his God- 
disowning volumes — he followed his son. I sought com- 
fort for the father, for the brother, and for my own dis- 
ordered nature. I sought it in the Bible ; in the Church ; 
in subordination to belief ; in obedience to God ; in re- 
nunciation of the world; and — I found it.” 

With a sunken tone of voice, he continued : ‘‘ It was 
a bitter struggle. It is not in man’s power to overcome 
everything external ; but within himself, nothing ought 
to withstand his will. I was victorious. In a year, I 
had retrieved everything in my studies, and became my 
father’s successor. I married your mother, because she 
was not handsome, nor educated, nor fond of pleasure ; 
and I saw in her affection for the early home, that she 
would know how to prize her own. From that time, I 
lived with the single aim of stifling the germ of sinful 
seed in the children she bore me ; of delivering them 
from the punishment of the Lord, which is transmitted 
to the third and fourth generation. The word of God, 


ORIGINAL SIN. 


151 


the quiet of my dwelling, had accomplished it in me ; I 
meant that they should do so in you. It was for this 
reason that I decided, irrevocably, that your brother 
should follow my steps in theology; for this reason, I 
shut the world out from you ; and for the same reason 
provided for you an honest husband. I had many a 
doubt about my son, and I now despair of him. But 
you ! what will my heart say, if it must despair of you ? 
I dreaded it with him, but I did not with you. From 
him I could prepare myself for the blow, but not from 
you.” 

Martha began to reply, less in her own exculpation, 
than to console him ; that — she was not yet lost, and if 
she must perish through her love for Werner — but her 
father resumed: — 

“ I do not fear that you have fallen ; you have only 
tottered, only slipped. Oh ! my child, my poor child ; 
you know not the world, nor the people of the world ! 
You know not the character of this man ; no, not even 
his name, nor his position in life. Who is he, then ? He 
calls himself Werner, and a government officer ; but he 
lies doubly in that ; for a government officer has no time 
to be loitering around here, for a week together ; and 
a Mr. Werner does not carry a handkerchief with a 
nobleman’s coat of arms in it. You find lies and deceit, 
my child, wherever you mingle with the world — Or, do 
you know more ? Do you know who he really is ?” 

She could not answer, yes. At her father’s disclosure 
of the mark in the handkerchief, she had raised herself 
gently up, and listened to him with extreme attention. 
She now fell back upon the pillow, and looking staringly 


152 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


into the darkness before her, shook her head in sorrow- 
ful meditation. 

“ Think of my brother Hugo ; oh ! he was so like 
you ; like you, so impetuously driven by his heart ;to 
good, hut to evil also. His soul speaks from your fea- 
tures ; oh ! let his fate be your warning.” Thus her 
father spoke to her, through his deep sighs ; and then 
remained a long while sitting by her side, buried in his 
own thoughts ; and in an attitude of depression. As he 
at last rose up, he stooped low over her — for. even the 
weak moonlight had disappeared — to see if she slept, 
but her wide-opened eyes looked staringly at him ; 
“ Sleep on,” said he, with gentleness ; and went down 
stairs, lightly as he had ascended. 

As Martha kissed her father’s hand next morning, he 
said, in an affectionate tone : “ Good-morning.” He had 
never done this before, long as she could remember ; for 
both she and Johannes always had to come up to him, 
the instant they saw him, and humbly kiss his hand, 
before he made them any reply. 

The daylight confirmed what had seemed the fact last 
night ; for he looked paler, more bent ; and the two 
past days had added years to his age. The sternness 
had vanished from his features, and in its place a deep 
melancholy rested there. You would scarcely have 
recognized his whole demeanor, it was so tender towards 
her mother, towards herself, even to the servant. When 
Martha, whose every. limb was trembling with weakness 
and fear, let the tumbler drop, there was no unkind ges- 
ture ; there were no reproaches against the maid, and 
he even condoled with her mother over her sufferings, 
and promised her that she should make a visit to her sea- 


ORIGINAL SIN. 


153 


shore home, so soon as she got better ; and that Martha 
should go with her. ‘‘ You shall have pleasure yet in 
life,” were his words. 

Martha looked intently at him. Was this her father ? 
It frightened her ; for she had once heard the knowing 
Kanger’s wife say, that when one was so false to his 
nature, he was surely going to die soon. She could not 
help thinking of it now, and her eyes began to fill. She 
went up to her room to give vent to her tears ; and al- 
though there were housekeeping duties for her to attend 
to, still, her father did not call her hack. 

The next night came, hut no thought with it, of again 
attempting an escape. 

Her life went on unconsciously. There was no per- 
ception of the present, no thought of the future ; she 
lived in her sorrows alone. And yet that frightful 
feeling of suffering still oppressed her. Things could 
not long remain thus ; something must he done, hut she 
knew not what ; she could do nothing. Often, she 
wanted to scream out in the agony of thus hovering be- 
tween her life’s happiness and its renunciation. Still, 
her fate could not yet he decided. She must yet have 
an explanation with Werner, and he with her father. 

Like a messenger of deliverance, Dora made her ap- 
pearance, and Martha drew her privately into her room. 

Dora’s first word was the recital of a great discovery 
— that Martha’s suitor was a Baron. An old and very 
dignified gentleman, attended by two servants, who called 
him the Baron von Bernthal, had been inquiring of her 
parents after another young Baron von Bernthal ; and 
no .one could give him any intelligence. From his 
description of the person, however, they hit, after a 

14>h 


154 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


Tvhile, on the strange man at the Kanger’s, hunted him 
out, and found that it was he. “This much,” said 
Dora, “was clear from the conversation of the pair; 
that the young baron had abandoned the lady he was 
engaged to, and the old one wanted to take him back to 
her. But Werner was not willing to go back, and was 
determined to have an interview with you.” At this 
point, the immediate object of Dora’s visit seemed to 
occur to her ; it was to bring a letter from the Baron 
von Bernthal. 

Calmly and decidedly, Martha returned the letter. 
“I know no Baron von Bernthal,” she said; “I have 
wept these two nights past for my Werner, because he 
was not Werner, but a nobleman. If the baron loves 
me as Werner did, let him go to my father, and tell 
him frankly and openly who he is, and ask my hand 
from him. I will know nothing of him, except through 
my father. How do I know that I may not be again 
hearing and believing an untruth ?” 

Dora went away, but returned the same day with the 
answer : “He says that he is truly the Baron von 
Bernthal ; that he owns villages and castles, and will 
take you with him, to the best of them all, as his wife. 
But you must follow him freely, and just as you are ; 
without dowry, and without your father’s consent. He 
says that he could not again solicit your father for your 
hand ; his honor would not permit it, after the insult 
already put upon him. Besides, if your father consented 
now, he would be compelled to believe that not himself, 
but his title was thought worthy, and he will receive 
your love, therefore, from your own hand, alone.” 

“ And though my heart break,” answered Martha, 


ORIGINAL SIN. 


155 


“ I will not be again false to my father. He loves me, 
I am sure of that ; but with all others, however dear 
they may be to me, I can believe it only when my 
father is convinced of it, and sees my happiness in it. 
If he loves me at all, he must ask me from my father ; 
and I am sure he will not be hard against him, and will 
know what is for my good.” 

The next day Martha received a letter. 

Mademoiselle : I am commissioned by my nephew, 
Baron Werner von Bernthal, to inform you that he 
leaves the Ranger’s house and this neighborhood, early 
to-day, since he cannot grant the request, even to you, 
that he should expose his honor again, to a man so ut- 
terly without breeding. I cannot, at the same time, 
avoid saying to you, that you have, by your equivocal 
deportment, not only thrown my frivolous, but amiable 
nephew into a most unhappy frame of mind, but have 
exposed his gray-haired uncle to the most painful appre- 
hensions. 

I subscribe myself. 

Most humbly, 

Aurelian, Baron von Bernthal. 


156 


THE KOSE OF THE PARSONAGE, 


CHAPTER VIII. 

DOMESTIC PEACE. 

Whether the parson interpreted this family destiny 
by the aid of his mystically orthodox intuition, as a 
consequence of original sin, or the vengeance of an 
offended God; or whether, on the other hand, in a ra- 
tionalistic apprehension of it, he grounded it upon the 
purely natural propagation, as well physical as spiritual, 
of temperament and character ; the inheritability of 
this irrepressible revolutionizing impulse, and this low- 
ering fate of an untimely end, was, in his estimation, 
both for himself and his children, a fact, about which he 
could not doubt — against which he could only struggle. 
He thought that he secured a deliverance from it for 
himself, in the humility of Christianity, and the apathy 
of stoicism ; and it was the aim of his life, to provide 
this salvation also for his children ; whom, the new 
liberal notions of the age, undermining as they did all 
authority, and proclaiming the unrestricted rights of 
individuality, threatened with a temptation of especial 
danger. Their whole education was directed with a 
view to kill out every longing, every struggle, every 
vindication of the individual in them, and to habituate 
them to a life as meagre as was possible. And this was 
the very point where the parson was false to his own 


DOMESTIC PEACE. 


157 


principles, and his ideas of worldly wisdom. This ap- 
prehension of the evil blood, disturbed his philosophic 
tranquillity ; and terror at the impending fate, forced 
anger to break through his affected equanimity. 

Thus, when his son began to leave the prescribed 
'path, he opposed to him a rigid and unqualified restraint; 
but the more violent he became, the more regardlessly 
would the son oppose to him the principle of spiritual 
independence ; and they stood, at last, like combatants 
for life and death, who are struggling with each other, 
firmly locked together. 

When John had been precipitated into that misfor- 
tune, which, prompted as it was by the father’s severity, 
seemed about to fulfil the fearful destiny, even upon 
him, then Wendelin tried to retire unmoved, in the con- 
sciousness of his duty and his obligations ; but there 
was a feeling of fear — an uncomfortable disquiet of 
conscience, that he could not suppress. Again . and 
again his thoughts recurred to the king, in the Greek 
tragedy, who conjured his fate upon his own head by 
the very crime undertaken to avoid it. 

Now, too, as he beheld Martha, for whom he had 
always anticipated less danger, gone astray, and striding 
towards destruction, he sank into overwhelming sorrow. 
Here, at least, he thought he could bear no portion of 
the blame ; for, though cold, he had never been severe 
towards her. But the painful feeling that it was his 
own blood that was sinning in her ; that she had been 
led astray by the destiny he had himself entailed on 
her, and should have turned aside from her head, waked 
all the gentleness of disposition, all the paternal tender- 
ness, which he had intentionally smothered in himself, 


158 THE KOSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 

into alarmed love. His hopes whispered to him — all 
will yet he well ; she shall yet be diverted from the road 
to destruction ; and on the peace of your home you may 
yet accustom her to renounce the happiness of an over- 
excited sentiment. 

None of his manifestations of tenderness were loud, 
or exaggerated ; indeed, they often consisted in nothing 
but the absence of anger; but how expressive was a 
kindly word with him — the overlooking of a fault, or 
the most trivial assistance in some household duty. 
And Martha knew, perfectly, how to interpret these 
symbols of his secret meaning, and she thanked him 
from her heart for them ; not with words, but with a 
smile. There was pain in her smile, it is true; but it 
was always so rich, so full of love, that his heart breathed 
more lightly at each glance ; freed from the threatening 
fate that had but just seemed to soar so closely over him. 

Her glowing cheeks, her gleaming eyes, her impulsive 
movements, all seemed to him indications, that the 
arrow of passion had not sunk so deep into her heart, 
and that her nature was still strong and vigorous 
enough to resist triumphantly, this foreign influence 
within. But a startling scene was destined to arouse 
his solicitude afresh, and to a most fearful height. 

When Dora had put the unknown baron’s letter into 
her hands, Martha had been called by her mother, to 
prepare the raspberry drink. She perceived how her 
daughter’s hand trembled, and, attributing it to agita- 
tion, caused by her sympathy with her, uttered her 
fond, but scarce merited expressions of pleasure, at 
Martha’s care and attention. “ You will remain true 
to me, my dear,” she said, ‘‘ for you are my last conso- 


DOMESTIC PEACE. 


159 


lation ; you will give me peace; and when I go hence, 
perhaps you alone will weep over my coffin. Martha 
grew pale — a cry escaped her — she dropped the glass, 
clutched at her heart, and fell back like a corpse upon 
the floor. 

Her mother/s cry brought father and maid-servant to 
her assistance, and they lifted her up. She recovered 
instantly, laughed in a mortified manner, and assured 
them that it was nothing; that she had only been foolish 
enough to let a momentary pain overcome her. Her 
father noticed, however, that the glow in her cheeks 
and eyes came only from a transient flush ; and he felt 
that a deep sorrow must have been gnawing at her 
heart’s core. 

He bent all his efforts now to support her, to give her 
more cheerfulness and strength, and to make home and 
life pleasant to her. He even began himself to be lo- 
quacious ; but often as he attempted it, he could seldom 
bring about a conversation. He talked about household 
matters, about their neighbors ; but it was always in his 
old spiteful tone, and no one felt the courage to oppose 
him. The Ranger’s family was another of his subjects; 
and he scourged their cheerfulness as a sinful, sensual 
pleasure ; their hospitable life as an unwarrantable fri- 
volity ; and while he thus criticized them with the 
harshest expressions, and Martha kept silence, he felt, 
for the first time, how that very thing had been her 
bane. 

At times, he went out to walk with her, carried her 
to some beautiful prospect, and praised the magnificent 
creations of God ; but she had surveyed them with very 
different eyes, and to her, all was now desolation. She 


160 THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 

could only turn away in suffering now, from the sight of 
the river ; for it was too bitter for her to feel all her 
wishes, all her hopes, her very soul itself, gliding with 
it, from her view. 

Her mother’s birthday came round about this time, 
and it had been the parson’s habit, hitherto, to hail its 
recurrence with a simple ‘‘good-morning.” But to-day, 
a pound-cake, wreathed with flowers, stood on the table, 
and his wife’s eyes were filled with tears all day, at the 
emotion this incident caused. Martha stole away from 
their side, for she felt too weak to bear up under the 
sentiment it aroused. 

Wendelin was destined to experience throughout, in 
spite of all his endeavors, that there was no common life 
between them ; and that all his efforts to create it, could 
only bring to light its want, and the impossibility of its 
supply. He felt now that poverty of existence which 
he had himself produced ; as a tragical fatality, try as 
he might, it supplied him no nutriment for his suffering 
child ; he could see her soul thirstily pining away, but 
the substance of his family life was nothing, and nothing 
could it produce. 

This little parsonage rose had grown up with him, 
like a flower in a pot ; but it had now expanded, and 
had burst the narrow, artificially- closed vessel that 
cramped its roots, by the power of its growth. He be- 
gan to perceive that he ought to transplant it to the 
soil of common life ; but, how easily do the flowers 
which we transplant in their bloom, pine away ! His 
little rose-bush threw out no more green leaves ; it 
dwindled gradually away; and he began to fear that, 


DOMESTIC PEACE. 


161 


before its roots could fasten tbemselves in the earth, it 
•would perish. 

In the anguish of his heart he •was untrue to himself ; 
for he tried to be humorous and jovial. But Nature 
gives man being alone ; he must obtain all else from 
life — yes, even merriment itself. Wendelin was pro- 
foundly ignorant how to be amiable. His jests, although 
he was a man of education, fell always far less kindly 
than -the old Ranger’s uncultivated ones; and were all of 
them distinguished from his by an air of compulsion, 
which made it impossible for anybody to laugh at them. 
At the outstart, neither mother nor daughter could un- 
derstand him, for they had no suspicion that he meant 
to joke ; and when, at last, there was no longer a doubt 
on that point, and still the laugh would not come, they 
would fall into a painful embarrassment, for his look 
would show them that they ought to have laughed. 

When his daughter’s love for him now and then con- 
strained her into cheerfulness, he would make the most 
fearful mistakes. Ilis jokes would be about her mar- 
riage, and her cousin Andrew ; but, how suddenly, at 
such times, she grew serious, and plucked at her neck- 
ribbon, and changed color ; while the old man went on 
more jovial than before. “ Don’t you like, dear, that I 
should jest with you about that ? well, then, we’ll talk of 
it more earnestly.” She pressed her hand to her heart, 
and said then : ‘‘ Father, ask of me what you will ; I 
will grant you any thing ; only not that !” Tears stood 
in her eyes ; while air, attitude, and tone, painted the 
fearful conflict of her soul. 

Her father was compelled into silence. Indeed, the 
parson was himself becoming tender. He went into the 
15 


162 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


garden on Sunday morning before church, and returned 
with a hunch of flowers. He who could not endure 
flowers, and had forbidden her to deck herself with 
them, himself handed the bouquet. “ They are the last 
roses of our garden,” said he ; and they were widely 
opened flowers, just ready to drop their leaves, and glit- 
tering with the dew-pearls of the morning. 

While Martha gazed at them, her tears gushed forth ; 
as she thought that she had not plucked one single rose 
this year. When flowers were dear to her, as nightly 
ornaments for her lover, the roses were opening their 
first buds — and now, these were the last. She did not 
place the nosegay in her dress, but carried tears instead 
of flowers, into church. 

The tokens of her disquietude became daily more fre- 
quent, and more threatening. On her cheeks, too, the 
last roses were fading. She was no longer capable of 
her bygone excitement, but lived on in silent, emotion- 
less gloom. She had at last attained, in fearful verity, 
that inexcitability, that absence of all feeling, which 
her father had set before her, as the aim of all morality, 
and of all happiness. 

Instead of the tranquil, painful smile ; sallow, dark 
despair rested on her features, as she came down from 
her chamber one morning, later than usual. Wendelin 
spoke to her, but she shrank from him. He asked her 
how she had slept; she answered: “Perhaps, after all, 
the weather will not get better and when she thought 
no one was observing her, she sank feebly into a chair, 
and pressed her hands to her forehead. Her father 
said to her, in a tone of gentle admonition, “ Martha ! 
Martha I” 


DOMESTIC PEACE. 


163 


‘‘ God of heaven !” she cried out, pardon ! pardon ! 
My God !” she then exclaimed, collecting herself, 
‘‘Where am I? What is the matter with me?” 

From this moment, her father no longer turned an 
unconcerned look upon her. If she were for an instant 
more cheerful, he was sure it was the recollection of her 
happiness ; if she looked melancholy, it w^as the thought 
of her loss, that was moving her soul. His ideas wan- 
dered helplessly in all directions, in search of something 
he might do for her ; but no path disclosed itself to him. 
He approached her morosely, and it augmented her 
grief. He tried severity, in turn ; but so far from help- 
ing her, he only read a resolute defiance in her mien ; 
side by side with despair. Ah ! how shall he deal with 
such a life ? how cure a heart like this ? 

Knowledge and art are so often insuflScient to guide 
the bodily life ; to control its material and form, which 
lie exposed to the eye of sense, and obey the equally 
prescribed laws of nature. But whence shall one begin 
to draw his understanding and his counsel for a soul- 
life, which no eye can detect, and is a different thing 
every instant ; which follows no law of necessity, for 
freewill can at any moment become its master ; and yet 
is not always uncontrolled in its freewill, for how often 
does the physical triumph over its control ? When the 
spirit is weak, it is possible to constrain its bent ; but 
when wearied with victory, it lies sunk in repose ; then 
the muscle, which we call a heart, moves ; and finds how 
to overreach its slumbering antagonist. Is it freedom, 
or constraint ; affection, or severity ; encouragement, or 
repression ; that can expel the demon power of passion 
from the spot where it ensconces its desolating action ? 


164 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


Wendelin was incessantly on the look-out to discover 
her state of health, and what she was about. At night 
he would creep to her bedside, and by day keep watch 
on her in the looking-glass, and through the doors and 
windows. He had granted her entire freedom in her 
mode of life, and now that she was no longer constrained 
to his society, he could not but notice how persistently 
she avoided it. Yet she could not enjoy her solitude or 
repose for an instant ; for the fear that her father would 
surprise her was ever present. 

Once in the gray of the morning, he stole up to her 
chamber, and found her kneeling before the window in 
her night-dress, withered flowers and a myrtle-wreath 
spread before her, and her face veiled in a white hand- 
kerchief that did not belong among the articles of his 
establishment. 

At every cost, he must know what was going on in his 
daughter’s bosom. While for his own part he was inca- 
pable of being open, and of speaking out of his own 
heart into the heart of another, he took the unprece- 
dented step of going with Martha to the Ranger’s. 
Among companions, thought he, she must grow cheerful. 
But her eye never left him ; she was silent, distant, and 
uneasy ; for it could not but oppress her to have her 
father forever at her side, and to appear herself before 
everybody as a patient. 

Wendelin’s visit to the Ranger’s was made too, with 
the view of asking Lenette about his daughter. He 
took the opportunity of speaking with her alone in the 
kitchen, and entreated her to urge Martha to confess 
her sorrow, and to confide in him. 

Lenette led Martha into the garden, under pretext of 


DOMESTIC PEACE. 


165 


eating some raspberries from the bushes ; and without 
circumlocution, begged her friend to tell her what it was 
that pained and distressed her so deeply. 

‘‘ I love him,” said Martha, bursting into tears, and 
I must love him, whether I will or not. My father 
requires me to root out the thought of him ; but even if 
I am strong enough in the daytime ; in my dreams — 
oh ! can I help it ? my soul is so weak — I call him to 
me. I allow him to approach me. 0 God ! sleep 
brings no more rest to me. I can scarcely rest at night, 
scarcely keep awake during the day — my whole life is a 
dream. Lenette, what I never thought of in my waking 
hours, never could think of, comes to me in my dreams, 
and ever afresh. Oh ! Father in heaven, take from me 
these dreams, so full of sin and of horror. I feel that 
they are so deeply nested in my soul, that they can leave 
it only with my life.” 

Despair was in her features, as she leaned bashfully 
on the bosom of her blooming friend. How lover-like 
Lenette wound her arm round her, and said with a look 
of apprehension, and a reproachful tone : “ Martha ! 
Martha ! what are you saying ? my child, for heaven’s 
sake — you do not think of — ?” 

“ My thoughts are not of a wicked end. No, no ! 
I dare not die thus,” said Martha, as her manner became 
more composed. My greatest suffering is, that I do not 
know whether I am not guilty ; whether I have not 
made him more miserable than myself. Oh ! why must 
I always be ^o weak ? Oh ! why did he leave me so, 
too? Only one word !” The hot tears gushed forth, 
for she felt that a single word would have been sufficient 
15* 


166 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


to bring about an understanding with her lover, and 
restore his happiness and her own. 

Lenette kissed her tearful eyes with a lively tender- 
ness, and said, full of anxious sympathy : “ Poor, poor 
child ! must you, then, suffer so deeply ? Oh ! control 
yourself, dear ; you must yet be able to do that. It is 
right that you should love no one else all your life, but 
it is not right to give yourself up so to suffering. We 
all have our heart-burden to carry, could you but look 
into every one’s soul. Even I have my own grief. I 
too am unhappy ; but I am true to my first love, and 
with no, no hope. I cannot believe that he is bad, and 
— am I not right in this ?” 

A few tears stole into her own eyes, but Martha was 
not listening to her ; her own suffering so engrossed her 
that she had no room for another’s. Lenette did not 
reproach this poor wounded heart, and, to take her away 
from her troubles, conducted Martha back among the 
famijy. She disclosed, however, none of these maidenly 
secrets to the parson ; but only said : “ ^artha can not 
and will not tear her heart away from her lover.” In 
return, she begged him to make some inquiry after the 
young baron, and to represent Martha’s distress to him. 
With a hesitating nod of his head, he made her the 
promise. 

Wendelin tried religion also. He gave her hymns to 
tead, and the New Testament ; but the eagerness with 
which she devoured them, astounded him. He found 
her bathed in tears over the narrative of the Passion ; 
and still she read this same chapter over and over again, 
until a heavenly peace seemed to steal over her, and the 
parson descried in it her final cure. 


DOMESTIC PEACE. 


167 


But one night, when his own grief had driven sleep 
from his bed, he heard a noise overhead, in Martha’s 
room. He listened — some one was creeping softly down 
stairs. He got up, walked into the sitting-room, and, 
at the same instant, the other door opened, and his 
daughter stepped into the room in her night-dress, a 
withered myrtle-wreath upon her head. He kept still, 
to see what new wrong she would be guilty of. She 
groped slowly and cautiously through the room, and as 
he moved towards her, he perceived that her eyes were 
shut. She was irresponsible ; for she had again fallen 
into that condition which had often troubled her in the 
later years of her childhood, and which was more than 
a dream, while it had not the mysterious symptoms of 
somnambulism. It was but that same wildness of 
dreaming which makes everybody, at some time or other, 
call out, and move the arms ; carried so far that it 
made her leave her bed, and grope her way fumblingly 
through the house. 

The parson was aware of the danger of startling her, 
suddenly, from this state ; he walked up to her, there- 
fore, and cautiously circled her with his arm, while he 
said, in a subdued tone : “ Martha ! Martha !” 

“ Ha ! ha ! Hugo !” she stammered in her dream, 
with all the marks of fright : “No I not yet ; leave me 
— leave me ! I will live still.” 

The fate of her uncle must have summoned this terri- 
fying dream before her soul. “Be still,” her father 
whispered gently to her ; “ be still, my child — it is I.” 

“ Ah ! you,” she replied, with a sweet smile : “Is it 
you, at last?” and, leaning upon him, with a deep sigh 
she sank into a profound sleep. Without waking her, 


168 


THE ROSE OP THE PARSONAGE. 


he brought her back to her chamber, half leading, 
half carrying her ; while she lisped out, from time to 
time, some undistinguishable, loving word. On the 
stairs her neckerchief fell off, and her father left it 
lying there. She sunk on her bed with a sigh, and was 
instantly asleep. 

Next morning she rushed down stairs, very early, into 
the sitting-room ; her hair unloosed, and the neck- 
erchief and myrtle-wreath in her hand. With a look 
of dismay and despair, she asked her father, hastily : 
‘‘Was the house locked last night?” and as he said, 
“ Why are you so anxious on that point ?” she grew 
blood-red, plucked in embarrassment at her dress, and 
excused herself. “ I had a dream about robbers ; and 
I thought it was all true. Thank God I it was only a 
dream.” *• 

The parson’s anxiety was raised to the highest pitch, 
and along with it there had grown up a tender feeling of 
sorrow towards this girl, so evidently pining away. The 
rich imagination, the capacity for the most exquisite 
enjoyment, which he had been struggling to repress by 
the asceticism of his life, burst forth again into bright 
flame, at the sight of these most delicate youthful 
charms. All the sensibility towards beauty of which 
his nature was capable, now swelled with fatherly love. 
He was perplexed, agitated, almost in despair ; for he 
would have given his life for this child. All was over 
with his learning and his art ; he desponded about his 
system of education ; he felt willing to abandon his long- 
cherished principles ; to concede everything, to try 
everything, provided he could but save his child. 

In a disposition of feeling such as this, few things 


DOMESTIC PEACE. 


169 


could have been more distasteful to him than a visit 
from Andrew. The weather was inclement, and they 
sat together in the twilight. The mother was asleep in 
her easy-chair, and Wendelin was on the very point of 
talking with his daughter about her relation with Wer- 
ner, when the cousin entered. 

‘‘ I am going to invite myself to be your guest for to- 
night and to-morrow,” was his greeting. “ It is holiday 
up there at my office ; grand festivity ; jolly days. Yet 
I hardly know what to think, when a four-horse coach 
comes thundering into the court-yard in full career. It 
was the countess; and, as she always has some odd 
notions or other when she comes — to-day it was a wed- 
ding — a wedding to-morrow.” 

Everybody was astonished. But whom is she going 
to marry ?” they asked. ‘‘ The Baron von Bernthal,” 
replied Andrew, nonchalantly. 

‘‘Bernthal!” exclaimed Martha, who till now had 
listened with indifference. 

“ I have never seen him ; he’s an old flame of hers, I 
hear ; but whether it is he or the flame that is old, is 
more than I know. It must certainly be some strange 
idea of hers. Yes, yes ; these ideas I these ideas 1 But 
it’s all a matter of indifference. It won’t last long.” 

Andrew continued his remarks, while Martha sat 
silent, and withdrew as .soon as possible. She did not 
return. The spare room was prepared for Andrew, and 
everybody went to bed without seeing her. Wendelin 
went to his daughter, to her chamber, and found her 
kneeling beside her bed, bathed in tears. 

He tried to speak comfort to her, but she entreated 
him : “ Leave me, father, only leave me now. All will 


170 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


be well, one way or another ; only leave me — my dear, 
good, kind father.’' 

He went away, and was waked again, at night, by 
the noise. The window of the sitting-room was open. 
Martha was not in her chamber. Had she fled to the 
cross by the stream ? Was the destiny fulfilled ? He 
raised the alarm ; called the sexton, the maid, the serv- 
ant-man ; ordered every one to search for her in the 
garden, in the churchyard, by the river. 

They did not find her ; but, as their only consolation, 
they found the back gate of the churchyard open. 
She had fled, at least, not into the arms of death ; per- 
haps into those of shame. 

A note was found in Martha’s chamber. It was as 
follows : — 

I am dealing you, my dearest parents, a deadly 
blow. I know it ; and yet I cannot do otherwise. 
Were I to stay, I must, ere long, cause you a sorrow 
equally fatal ; for, here I am in the hands of my fate — 
that fate which overtook my uncle. He has already 
appeared to me. He has beckoned to me, and I fly 
from him. I will — I must — live a little longer. Perhaps 
there is yet deliverance — the only one that can exist ; 
for your sakes and for my own I shall seek it. 

Eternally your own 

Martha. 


PEOPLE OF THE WOKLD. 


171 


CHAPTER IX. 

PEOPLE OF THE WORLD. 

Outside the parish hounds for the first time in her 
life, unacquainted with the road, without food, without 
money, her straw hat her only protection against sun 
and rain, fearful and terrified at every strange face — 
Martha wandered on ; at first in the darkness of night, 
then in the blaze of the sun ; to a castle she had never 
seen, six long and weary hours distant. It was here 
that her lot for life or for death must be decided. Often 
enough had she wished with ardor, to journey down the 
Rhine, and see the distant lands and castles ; but now 
she crept away down its hanks, faint with the pain she 
carried with her, and incapable of stretching her eyes 
into the distance. 

Life and love were so heavy to this poor child, and 
yet how light can they both of them be. There is the 
Countess Vanda, who is going to unite herself to-day 
with a Baron von Bernthal ; very different is her expe- 
rience of life and love. 

She had driven up one beautiful morning to the hotel 
of her betrothed, carried him and his uncle off on an 
excursion, and driven with them three days and three 
nights ; pausing only to change horses, till they reached 
her castle on the Rhine ; and when they asked in aston- 


172 


TUB ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


ishment^ wliat pleasantry^ after all, was to come out of 
this; she replied: Our wedding.” 

Yes, it was Werner von Bernthal who was going to 
be married to-day ; a cavalier comme il faut, and one 
who had been trained to it by a single precept of his 
uncle Aurelian, an experienced man of the world. This 
was, that success with the ladies is the great happiness 
of life. Gain that, he would say, wherever you think 
it worth while ; but never secure it by your money, 
always through your personal merit alone ; for even in 
this way only is it worthy the honor of a cavalier. 
Through this principle, he had preserved his dear pupil 
from a relaxing life of licentiousness and premature 
exhaustion, and had implanted in him an inducement 
to the acquisition and illustration of all the social accom- 
plishments. It had made him the most amiable and 
most dangerous man of the world, in the circle in which 
he moved. He prided himself, or rather he might have 
prided himself — for he was much too discreet to do so 
in reality — upon having never loved unsuccessfully ; yet 
even he was destined to meet his Crimhilda. 

The Countess Vanda, scarcely two years younger than 
himself, and related to him in the third or fourth degree, 
possessing immense property, and supplied in the rich- 
est profusion with all the charms which beauty, wit, 
talent, and the most careful education could bestow, 
had been the playmate of his childhood and the sweet- 
heart of his youth. In society, they passed always as 
engaged to each other. She was the daughter of that 
countess, with whom Wendelin’s unhappy brother had 
stood, as he maintained, in a guilty relation ; and the 
subtly speculating parson fancied ho could see his faith 


PEOPLE OF THE WORLD. 


173 


in the inheritability of that overbearing family temper- 
ament, confirmed in the Countess Vanda. 

Be it as it might, the countess possessed that impul- 
sive, restless, ever sympathetic, but ever perverse tem- 
perament, which seems usually to have the greatest 
attraction for the other sex ; and which succeeded in 
captivating Werner so entirely, that he protested in his 
own truth towards this one affection. Yet even here, 
he did not exclude the suspicion that one true was united 
with many a false one. He felt that these charms, too, 
were not unfrequently oppressive, in the quarrels which 
happened only too often between the young couple. 
Vanda had refused her consent to a formal betrothal 
for years ; for she was determined to be her own mis- 
tress, and to taste her independence, at least on her 
entrance into majority, before she gave herself up a 
slave to a husband. At length, in her twenty-fifth year, 
she assented to the betrothal; but if Werner had anti- 
♦ cipated a closer intimacy from this event, he had made 
a great mistake. She began to treat him with reserve, 
as an entire stranger ; and the only reference she 
seemed to make to him, was in teasing him with a stu- 
died coquetry. 

Her situation in society had become much less con- 
strained since her betrothal, and she seemed desirous 
of enjoying this freedom with an unbridled wantonness. 
Instead of uniting herself closely to her betrothed, and 
giving him her entire confidence, she threw herself into 
the whirl of society, and with a comet-tail of worshippers 
behind her, shot gleamingly along ; and it seemed her 
object to move like that kind of star, athwart all regular 
paths, spreading astonishment and fright around. She 
16 


174 THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 

had broken through the accustomed tone of society, and 
nothing but extraordinary diversions, plastic or dramatic 
representations, masquerades, long drives, wild caval- 
cades, and whatever else followed in -the train of her 
intercourse with society, filled up untiringly the days 
and nights at her palace in the capital, where she resided 
under the protection of an aunt, who, for form’s sake, 
did the honors. 

Everything, no matter how apparently undertaken in 
the thoughtlessness of the moment, had, notwithstand- 
ing, a single finely conceived purpose : to bring out 
Vanda’s especial charms, and make them shine in the 
most varied illumination. For this very object no one 
could be thrust into the background. Every one must 
have his chance of being’enraptured with her ; and it 
was very certain that no man, however insignificant, 
had any right to complain of her want of consideration. 
The very undesignedness in which she appeared to be 
impelled, now here, now there, was in reality a very con- 
sistent plan to make a conquest of everybody ; to cele- 
brate a triumph, often with wanton cruelty, over all, 
both young and old, of elevated or of humble rank. 
Each one, in this system, regarded himself as the espe- 
cial favorite ; for she had towards every one her own 
particular manner, and her especial time, for inspiring 
this belief and strengthening it. 

Towards Werner alone she seemed not to act thus ; 
and yet, on the other hand, when on this account he 
withdrew himself angrily from her presence, she knew 
how, with a word or a glance, to make him believe that 
he stood first with her, in spite of it all. Then after- 
wards, when he tried to approach a little nearer, she 


PEOPLE OF THE WORLD. 


175 


would scarcely know him. At last, he could suppress 
his jealous displeasure no longer, and gave vent to it 
with loud vehemence against her ; but now she became 
defiant. ‘‘What have you to reproach me with?” she 
said ; “ with whom have I committed any fault ?” — and 
there was not actually a single definite reproach he could 
make. 

She associated with everybody at her discretion; yet 
no one dared, on that account, to think of returning the 
liberties she might take with him; and no one could 
take a step towards her, beyond the limits of etiquette, 
though but a single one, that she did not evidently 
perceive it. She could even laugh at Werner. “ Am 
I doing anything but carrying on my pleasantry with 
everybody; to entice the dignified to be frolicsome, and 
the circumspect inconsiderate ? And do you let me put 
off the joke on you too ? Don’t you see through it ?” 
He grew indignant at this, and reproached her with her 
intimacy with Prince Waldemar ; the same person who 
had confessed to Werner, in confidence, that he marked 
his conquests by an emerald set in brilliants. 

“ Can you be angry at that ?” said Vanda, with the 
calmness and deliberation of Minerva. “Is he not 
your own friend, and as worthy of my friendship as of 
yours ? Is it not my duty, too, to secure, through him, 
the favor at court which you have destroyed by your 
rash expression of opinions, and your fickle inattention 
to your duties there ? Ought we not, in short, to secure 
his friendship, so that we may possess a devoted ad- 
herent in time to come, for the whole period of our united 
life at court ; which, in so many things, we cannot dis- 
pense with ?” 


176 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


Werner still persevered in his petulance, and Vanda 
could only appease him by fondness. He learned, by 
this, that disdain and boldness alone could break down 
her reserve. It was only when he could keep her in 
awe by presumptuousness towards her freaks, by some 
daring adventure, some bold ride taken in her honor, or 
some cunningly-conceived surprise, that she suffered 
herself to be led into kindliness of manner, perhaps into 
familiarity. But he could not repeat himself, and she 
opposed resistance to everything except his growing 
audacity, so that he began to outdo himself in his oddi- 
ties, and his temerity led him, at last, to the very limits 
of hardihood. 

He placed a ladder against her window, in order to 
surprise her as a troubadour; and even this venture 
seemed to take well ; for during his song she showed ' 
herself at the window, beckoned to him with her hand- 
kerchief, and he ascended. As he reached the top, he 
seized a hand, kissed it, and uttered his first words ; he 
thought he must have been mistaken in the person, for 
no fondness was returned him. He convinced himself, 
however, that it was none the less his betrothed, who 
was probably alarmed, and seemed desirous of escaping; 
when, at the same instant, the door opened, and he saw 
a man’s form entering in the partial darkness of the 
room. Vanda tears herself from him, shuts to the 
window, extinguishes the lamp in her chamber, and our 
troubadour has nothing left him but to go back again, 
down his ladder. 

The next morning he returned the countess her be- 
trothal ring, and set out the same day on a journey, 
apparently in the direction of Paris. 


PEOPLE OF THE WORLD. 


177 


If anybody could have resisted Vanda’s coquetry, 
Werner was the man to do it, by his indefatigable versa- 
tility. But even his happy temperament was at last 
exhausted, and he had never been capable of abandoning 
his honor. He had reached that part of the course 
where the youth passes into the fulbaged man, and in 
which Nature, while his capacity for enjoyment is still 
at its height, longs for the moderation, repose, and 
regularity of life. When Vanda had once said, and not 
without a deeper meaning, “ Coquetry is conflict; love, 
possession ; and true life lies only in conflict,” he had 
to confess to himself, that it was his desire to crown the 
battle with victory, and to be enabled to give the bliss 
of possession precedence over the enjoyment of the 
struggle. His nature pined after the comfortable con- 
straint, the immovable steadfastness of married life. 

Vanda had been — thanks to her very coyness towards 
him — the only being among all his flirtations that he 
had ever loved ; and she had united his prospects for 
external life to the happiness of his heart. His alliance 
with her would restore the condition of his property, 
considerably disordered by the pursuit of his noble 
uncle, education, and his own assistance; and would 
give him, at the same time, an employment, in the 
management of her extensive estates, that would excite 
and increase an earnest activity. The aim as well as 
the happiness of his whole life, had thus been placed on 
the possession of Vanda. 

In a single night, all the hopes, wishes, and designs 
of this young man were struck down. Yet the baron 
did ^ot complain ; he left himself no time to be miser- 
able. There was a solidity about his nature, which, 
16 * 


178 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


however it might be thrust to one side or another, could 
never be injured, never torn to pieces. Six hours after 
he had broken with Vanda, he had put in action his 
resolve to give a new direction to his life. He had 
entered on the government course for the completion of 
his education, but had soon abandoned it as too tedious 
for a man of parts. When war broke out, military glory 
allured him ; and he gave shining proofs of his courage 
and his presence of mind, and returned, decorated with 
more than one ribbon, when the victorious campaign had 
been closed. In time of peace, however, he asserted that 
a soldier’s part W’as only fit for a mental or bodily invalid. 
As for political life, it was still less his purpose to undergo 
that; for he thought that the struggle about popular rights 
might well be left to ministers, and to Jews, Poles, and 
Prenchmen, who knew all about them. His aristocratic 
and egotistical character allowed him to sell his personal 
services only for elevated prospects, which were attain- 
able speedily, no matter how assiduously ; at least it 
had been so till now, when his broken expectations of 
Vanda’s fortune made an entrance upon some career or 
other indispensable. He resolved to obtain some diplo- 
matic situation ; employment was promised him in Paris, 
at the embassy of his government ; and it was on the 
journey thither, while making a pedestrian tour along 
the Rhine, that he had made the acquaintance of the 
Ranger’s family and Martha. 

Even a vigorous and happily constituted nature may 
readily succumb, in these our times, to weariness and 
disgust, in the comfortless struggle of all against all ; a 
struggle in which the relations of life threaten to dis- 
solve, where no one dare rest an instant if he wishes to 


PEOPLE OF THE WORLD. 


179 


remain on the surface ; and where, after all, one can 
conquer for himself little more than existence. Here, 
in the quiet of nature, a weakness like this assailed 
Werner; a deep-felt yearning after the pastoral, emerged 
on him from out the sensations of his earliest youthful 
life. In Martha, he learned to know a love which was 
perfect possession, perfect happiness, perfect truth, per- 
fect confidence. He felt himself happy as the hunted 
deer, that at last stretches itself in secure repose by the 
fresh-bubbling spring. What his plan should he for the 
future of this love, he possibly never thought. He 
could grow inconsiderate, even by premeditation; and 
naive enough, by reflection, to discard every considera- 
tion, every question on the why and the wherefore, that 
threatened to destroy the present, in the past and the 
future. He had possibly never represented to himself 
the sacrifice it would cost him to remain true to this girl; 
but it was no less certain that it had never been his 
design to be faithless to her. He lived on blissfully in 
this day of his fortune, without thinking of its end. 
Yes, in the transport of his love, in his swelling anger 
at the world which had deceived him, he felt even capa- 
ble of the rash resolve to cast from him every connection 
with the world at large, and to create a natural state of 
Paradisaical enchantment, in a little world of his own. 

Here, in this greatest tension of his romantic sensibi- 
lity, Martha withdrew from him ; and now, reflection 
and doubt pressed in upon his heart, and reality over- 
flowed the mysterious twilight of his poetic dreams. 

On the day of the last meeting. Uncle Aurelian had 
at last discovered his vanished nephew at the Hanger’s. 
He came armed with an assurance of Vanda’s innocence, 


180 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


of her distress at the misunderstanding, and with a 
promise, on her part, that the old relation should be 
renewed. The explanation he gave of that mishap was 
this : The male figure which Werner had seen was no- 
body but Vanda’s attendant, dressed in this manner to 
alarm him. Werner had nothing to reply to this; for 
Vanda, who never could repay his own adventurous sal- 
lies with hardihood enough, had surprised him herself 
one evening, in a male costume ; in which she had made 
his uncle introduce her into Werner’s room as a young 
artist. 

Werner was thus recalled by the revival of all his 
hopes. Nothing held him back but the prospect of 
family troubles, and his displeasure at Martha’s tearful 
irresolution. She seemed to have no right to him, for 
she certainly availed herself of none. He followed his 
uncle to the capital, where the latter urged him to ask 
forgiveness ; but Werner refused this, and maintained 
that Vanda must take the first step towards reconcilia- 
tion. The affair was discussed in every way, without 
any result ; when Vanda one day stepped into his room, 
held out her hand with a smile, and they were recon- 
ciled. Three days after, the countess undertook the 
elopement we have mentioned, to the castle where she 
purposed being married. 

These surprises, to which Vanda tried to give the 
appearance of amiable caprices, by w'hich she made good 
her earlier impertinences, were now in danger of over- 
stepping the bounds of propriety; and for that very 
reason they failed of their desired impression, exactly 
as Werner’s audacity. Her objectless geniality had so 
far outbade itself, that he could not help suspecting in 


PEOPLE OF THE WORLD. 


181 


it a most premeditated purpose ; and the thought pre- 
sented itself involuntarily, at this topsy-turvy course : 

Wha^ if she have some cause to hasten?” The sus- 
picion was angrily dismissed the instant it assailed him ; 
but though it had possessed him but a moment, it had 
implanted a deep distress and a lasting discord. 

While Vanda was adorning herself for the bridal 
altar, he had gone to breakfast with his uncle in the 
parlor on the ground floor, which commanded a view of 
the park. Uncle Aurelian was in a fearful state of em- 
barrassment, about his mahogany dressing-case, which, 
with its mysterious contents, had been left behind ; and 
he declared with earnestness, more than once, that this 
amiable, delicious little wag, had improvised the wed- 
ding escapade, for the sole purpose of seeing how he 
would look without his full toilet and his George. Still, 
Aurelian was in a capital humor. He sipped in the 
free, fresh-streaming mountain air, like a delicacy ; sang 
snatches from operas and love songs, with a very piquant 
attraction, notwithstanding his feeble old voice ; made 
bon-mot after hon-mot, though he never dispensed these 
except in larger society ; and took his breakfast with a 
most comfortable gormandise. 

Werner, like his uncle, had completed the moderate 
toilet, which was all that was in their power, without 
a change of dress ; but he neither ate nor drank any- 
thing ; but paced up and down the parlor with long 
steps, then stood by the window, tapped with his fingers 
on the pane, and showed, by his whole deportment, that 
he was restless and irresolute. 

The old gentleman perpetrated joke after joke, but the 
nephew would not utter a word. At last, Werner poured 


182 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


out for himself a glass of strong Chamber tin. “Are 
you drinking courage for your wedding?” asked the 
other. “All right; it needs courage to be willing to 
tame a filly like this, that you may wear her like a lily 
in your bosom afterwards. Ha, ha ! it will give you 
good exercise. But you’re the man for it, and you may 
thank your old uncle that you are so.” 

“ Courage ?” broke out AVerner, in a tone of bitterness 
and agitation that his uncle had never expected from 
him, and least of all to-day. “ Yes, by Heaven, it does 
need courage, and perhaps more than I possess. I’ve 
courage enough to deal with any man of honor, but with 
a woman that ” 

“ Hush ! hush !” whispered the old man in alarm. 
“ Walls have ears. Say it all after you’re married, and 
a great deal more, too, for all I care — only not now !” 

“ Yes, afterwards ! That’s the thing ; and I know 
about as much of this afterwards as I do of heaven ; no- 
thing ; nothing ; except that it may be a very miserable 
one. Devil take it !” he exclaimed, while he poured his 
glass out of the window ; “ that is the third time I have 
filled my glass, and the third time there has been a fly 
in it. A bad omen, that ! Am I the fly, I wonder, that 
lets himself be caught by the sweet juice ?” 

His uncle laughed at his superstition. “ Take a dif- 
ferent interpretation,” he said. “You find a fly in 
everything sweet, even where there is none. Our des- 
tiny mocks us on important occasions with a double face. 
You are sentimental, and now is just the time to be so. 
Before marriage, one ought not to find fault with even a 
man of education, for going so far as to say his prayers. 
You ought to say your prayers ; or, still better, don’t 


PEOPLE OF THE WORLD. 


183 


drint such strong wine. Drink Champagne, my son ; 
Champagne, instead of Chambertin ; it will make your 
blood lighter.” 

“ You mistake, mon tres cJier oncle, if you think that 
I have no humors but what come from the blood. There 
are some very peculiar thoughts turning round in my 
head. Here I stand, on the very pinnacle of my happi- 
ness, at the centre of all my wishes ; and what is it 
after all that I attain ? Ha ! when I think of the deli- 
cious glow, the joyous ecstasy, with which I loved Vanda 
when our childish hearts were startlingly kindled at the 
first bashful kiss ; and when I reflect on the frame of 
mind, the doubt, the disinclination, the pain with which 
I stand here, in this hour of the fulfilment of all my 
happiness — ah ! bah ! what has the world, what has 
Vanda herself, made out of my heart and my affection ? 
And where has all your diplomacy, where have all our 
skill and worldly wisdom brought me ? Devil take all, 
say I. I can’t get the fly out of my thoughts, the fly 
that’s caught here in the glass.” 

‘‘ What has it brought you to ? To everything that 
was attainable. We must content ourselves with cir- 
cumstances ; that is the only wisdom ; and if you can’t 
find your happiness in what is attainable, why, inflated 
notions and mental excitement must have unnerved you. 
There is nothing perfect on earth; not even any perfect 
happiness in love.” 

“ Still, one kind comes nearer perfection than an- 
other.” 

“ A pastoral love, for instance !” 

‘‘Yes, provided it be love.” 

“ Ah ! the simple, sweet folly of youth !” 


184 THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 

Oh, ‘ there are more things in heaven and earth, 
than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’ my dear Epi- 
curean uncle. They used to teach, at the University, 
that consistent Epicurism leads to virtue ; perhaps 
consistent worldly wisdom leads to genuine love and 
truth. But enough of that. I am not the man to be 
consistent; I am not the man to master life. Chance 
fate for all ; I know Providence has brought me here, 
and you may do with me still what you please. I have 
broken already once with this world, with these circum- 
stances, and in vain. It must be my destiny to stand 
here. Or, shall I try the rupture once more, and once 
more in vain ; and then be laughed at as a poor, weak 
thing ? Let life go on as it likes ; I have no longer any 
love or any joy in it, however it goes.” 

“ You poor young man ! You are in a nervous state 
of mind, produced. by the weak constitution of your 
character. You have certainly got the blues. Your 
anxiety about your wedding comes from that. Oh, it 
will abate, it will subside. I think I know the ground 
of it. You feel conscientious about the little thing up 
there at the parsonage. Don’t be a fool, my dear 
young friend! Conscience! What is conscience? There 
is a healthy common-sense, that is the only conscience 
I know of; and all those uncertainties which yield before 
it, and melt into the imagination — such fancies, for 
instance, as lie in those three words : faith, love, hope, 
and such like prattle — those come from conscience. 
Have no apprehensions on that score. One littla bit of 
prudence, not to play any stupid pranks, dispels all 
conscience. For this end, let’s use our healthy under- 
standing. You see I’m becoming a moralist. Let that 


PEOPLE OF THE WORLD. 


185 


be my wedding blessing ; and I can tell you you need 
it, for we must take^ care that that shepherdess love of 
yours doesn’t become an infernal scandal. I mean to 
be responsible for that myself. As soon as the wedding 
is over, I shall put myself on the road — for then, you 
know, you will wish to be alone — to find out your 
parsonage rose. I will tranquillize her, as sure as I am 
Aurelian, Baron von Bernthal ; and, if nothing will 
prevent her pining away for you, and she is so unrea- 
sonably fond of you, why, in heaven’s name, what stands 
in the way of making your parsonage rose happy ?” 

He was interrupted at these words by a loud call that 
concerned his nephew. ‘‘ Werner, Werner !” and a 
female form rushed through the open door, into the 
room, in the most graceful and modest attire ; a rustic 
straw hat hanging from her arm, and, with a look — was 
it of insanity or of horror ? — threw herself, unceremo- 
niously and impetuously, upon Werner’s breast. 

“Martha!” exclaimed Werner, with astonishment 
and terror ; but there was none of the sympathy of love 
in his tone. “ Here ? Why are you here ?” 

“ With you, with you I I have left father and mother 
for you alone — for you alone.” She could say no 
more, but uttered a cry in a tone that came from the 
depths of her heart, and sank into the depths of his — he 
had never heard a human cry like it before. Werner 
was shocked. He looked into the face which could be 
so eloquent, and he saw one wholly strange. The well- 
known, beloved maiden features were there, but he saw 
now, in the heated face, the glowung, flaming eyes, the 
devastation of a heart-breaking passion — a human being’s 
mortal struggle. 

17 


186 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


Involuntarily, and with admiration, he folded her 
closer in his arms ; but he could not kiss her ; her look, 
which threatened to wreathe round him like a flame, 
distressed him. It was delirious ; her bosom heaved 
convulsively; she clutched with her hand at her left 
side, and exclaimed : “ Oh ! this happiness ! I cannot 
bear it. My heart will break !” The tone came from 
her breast, as if melody mingled with a shriek — as if a 
soul were splitting asunder between ecstasy and anguish. 
There are tones at which the string cracks ; this was 
one where a heart seemed shivered. Even Werner 
could have cried out himself, in sorrow, at this girl’s 
misery ; but his love could draw him to no grief-stricken 
heart. He looked round him in embarrassment, to see 
how he could get rid of her. 

The old baron, "who had quickly comprehended the 
whole situation, congratulated himself on being again 
able to display his diplomatic superiority. He stepped 
resolutely between them, and took Martha’s hand with 
a fatherly air, while he said: “But, my dear, sweet 
young lady, you are exposing yourself. This is the 
open reception-room, and any instant some one may 
enter. Take my arm, I beg you. I will conduct you 
to a pleasant, retired spot, my child ; there you may be 
happy without interruption.” 

“ What have I done ? What ails me ? My God, 
Werner, what am I to believe ?” asked Martha ; and as 
she looked round her with widely-opened eye, seemed 
to be collecting herself from a state of unconsciousness. 
Had she, on her entrance into the room, heard the 
uncle’s closing words, and interpreted them wrongly ? 
or had all reflection been snatched away at the sight of 


PEOPLE OF THE WORLD. 


187 


her beloved, and was she irresistibly impelled to his 
breast? It was evident that the doubts which had 
driven her hither returned now, for the first time, to 
her recollection. 

Horrified at her own precipitation, all she could say — 
while her eyes were cast on the ground, and she stood 
plucking at her dress — was: ‘‘ Only tell me! only tell 
me 1” 

‘‘ Certainly, my dear child, but not here. Go with 
him : he means it kindly,” said Werner, and turned 
towards a servant, who entered to announce something. 

Martha could see by the entrance of this strange 
man, that the old gentleman was right in urging her to 
depart. She felt as if she might trust in him, and her 
last fingerings yielding to his olficiousness, the old 
baron led her out of the room before she had obtained 
from her beloved that one more look which she sought. 

Werner now breathed freely. It was high time that 
Martha had vanished, for the next instant the countess, 
announced by a servant, entered, in a green velvet 
riding-dress; her countenance majestically pale, her eye 
gleaming, her manner excited. Her whole bearing was 
calculated to give the impression that she was endea- 
voring to conceal her maiden embarrassment under a 
forced freedom. 

Blushing, and with an enchanting smile, she took 
Werner’s proffered arm. The bells of the castle-chapel 
began to chime, the organ to swell, and the couple, fol- 
lowed by her attendants, walked through the park to 
the bridal altar : a splendid — a noble pair. 

Martha had followed the old baron into an adjoining 
room, but when these festive sounds met her ear, and 


188 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


she heard the footsteps crackling outside upon the gra- 
vel walks, she could be restrained no longer. She hur- 
ried to the window, and, as her eye fell on her lover 
walking alongside his bride, so proud, though so pale, 
she became composed, folded her hands, and prayed — 
her eye still following him. 

The old baron was concerned for her. He grew as 
tender towards her as his nature permitted, and thought 
to console her as he said : “ He is espoused to the 

countess, but he is fond of you, endlessly fond of you ; 
and he will always continue true to you. That he is 
going, to marry ! — mon Dieu I isn’t he a baron ? and 
as for marriage, what difference does that make ?” 

“ What difference does that make ?” repeated Martha, 
staring before her. He could not conjecture what she 
meant. She was about to retire, when Aurelian, ever 
gallant, asked : “Where will you go ?” 

“ To my father,” she replied. He begged to offer 
her an equipage, but she declined it. He volunteered 
to attend her himself, but she repulsed him. He felt 
really kindly towards her, and longed to do something 
for her ; at any rate, to have the horses put to, and send 
a domestic with her. She would accept of nothing. 
Shrugging his shoulders at this pertinacious style of 
repelling him — something he had not met in a long 
while — he at last took his leave of her, with the promise 
to visit her soon. 

“ You will come in vain,” she said ; and stepped 
quietly and proudly out of the bridal mansion. 


REGENERATION. 


189 


CHAPTER X." 

REGENERATION. 

“What, then, dost thou wish? What canst thou 
wish? Driven from thy home, contemned by alLthe 
world, a pursued enemy in thine own fatherland, thou 
hast nothing in the whole earth, no place to rest thy 
head, no friend to gladden thy heart ; and within thy- 
self thou hast nothing — nothing but a chaos ; and yet, 
not the chaos of fermenting elements, which can yet 
produce a new world from itself, hut that nothingness 
that is conscious of its own nonentity, in its hatred of 
everything that exists and has life — in its hatred against 
itself. And what yet dost thou desire ? Wilt thou 
still live ? Still live ! do I ask ? Hast thou, then, 
ever lived ? Was that life — that existence without a 
solitary pulsation of joy, without a heart-heat of love, 
without an instant of repose, without an action of con- 
tentment ; and, instead of these, only the eternal, silent, 
exhaustless struggle, here in the inmost heart, which 
achieves nothing but the void of desolation within, and 
despair over the void — and then, in turn, a wild thirst 
for pleasure, which longs in vain to stifle the despair ? 
But no^more of that now. And if no more of that, 
what wilt thou, then, still ? Let the curling waves of 
thy being glide away out into the ocean of common 
17 * 


190 


THE ROSE <)F THE PARSONAGE. 


life. This mood of singularity gives thee no comfort. 
Thou returnest again to the infinite matter, whence thou 
earnest. What wilt thou still ?” 

Thus John communed with his heart by the cross on 
the Rhine ; and the thought rose before him, of fulfilling 
the destiny of a strong and noble nature, whose power- 
ful internal impulse was dashing it to pieces against 
external circumstances. 

His father’s education had followed him into life like 
a curse. He had emerged into academic freedom, like 
a child unacquainted with the world, exalted far above 
everyday life, void of all thought and feeling, and full 
only of an indistinct but heated longing after life. He 
had never learned to observe, to calculate, to restrain 
himself; the enjoyment of all worldly pleasures had been 
denied him ; and now that he had once learned to know 
them, they were, in his estimation, the only objects wor- 
thy of life. Yet, without the means, the capacity, or 
the worldly wisdom to procure aesthetic enjoyment for 
himself, he had plunged into the wildest brutality of 
the German Student’s Romance. 

With how many natures did he share this lot ! Edu- 
cated by men almost always devoid of healthy natural 
character, for the most part without opinions, and sel- 
dom of true human culture, the manly youth is liber- 
ated from the strait-jacket of school days into the open 
wrestling-ground of life, and the emancipated nature 
plunges vigorously into the trial of wild, unreined in- 
dulgence, so that it may measure the vitality it fan- 
cies exhaustless. And when this is measured, and 
exhausted, he returns a grown-up man into the regulated 
life from which he issued, and becomes exactly such a 


REGENERATION. 191 

mental eunuch as the honorable pedant Tyho has so 
unmercifully insulted him upon the school bench. 

The larger part do thus. There are some, though few 
in number, who possess the consistency and courage to 
go to destruction in the student period ; and fewest of 
all struggle through to the noble dignity of the man. 
John did not belong to the first, nor to the second; he 
made his attempt with the last. 

When, pressed by the last term of his three years 
course, he returned to his studies, the orthodox con- 
templations to which his father had devoted him re- 
mained still truths in his mind ; but he had become 
utterly indifferent to them. He began to grasp after 
the old writers ; and this indifference grew into aversion. 
He tried to find an interest in the new handling of old 
dogmas; but found, instead, new doctrines, which ex- 
panded into ardently loved truths. The unfolding of 
that God who is All, and that All which is God, gave 
him a new existence; brought him peace and desire at 
the same time; provided him his religion, the conscious- 
ness of a free spirit, of a spiritual morality, and an in- 
tellectual love. 

Under the influence of his new life, he was desirous 
now of entering upon a new path of study ; but that 
obedience to his father, which he could not expel from 
his heart, constrained him to complete the old. He did 
it, but only that he might be able then to live in his 
new thoughts, and comprehend his religion in the eru- 
dition of philosophy. 

It is so beautiful to have a religion ; but so hard, for 
her sake, to whom one would gladly devote his whole 
being, to come to an agreement with the world. With 


192 


THE EOSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


John, it was the unshackled consciousness of an inward 
heaven, which swelled him far out of himself, but which, 
always pressed hack again upon itself by the narrowness 
of his existence, devastated his singular soul. He 
found no one in the retirement of the village with whom 
he could share his views ; and everything which, in 
earlier life, stood near to him, was now remote and 
strange ; for the only things which had any value to 
him were his new thoughts, and whatever might confirm 
them to him. For their sake, it was his wish to toil out 
into the world through his writings ; but how could he 
give his voice utterance through the press ? He found 
every nook and corner in the periodicals preoccupied ; 
the booksellers, at least those whose acquaintance he 
had made, knew how to estimate nothing in a manu- 
script hut the name of its author ; and when, at last, he 
succeeded in publishing a valuable and popular philo- 
sophical treatise on “ The Inner Mission, regarded from 
the purely human point of view,” he found himself like 
the preacher in the wdlderness. Who knew anything 
about the book ? Who could bring it to notice ? In 
literature, everybody had enough to do with praising his 
friends and abusing his enemies ; and he was so unfor- 
tunate as to be neither the friend nor enemy of any man. 

With a view of becoming a professor in a university, 
he was absorbed in the earnest study of philosophy ; 
and, wholly dead to the world that lay around him, he 
retired lonely within himself. But we are not merely 
and purely spirits ; and even the abstract thinker must, 
like other mortals, feel unhappiness in isolation. He 
was silent about his trouble, and. settled uncommuni- 
catively and wholly into himself; so that, at last, he 


REGENERATION. 


193 


had become incapable of sympathy. Often, when he 
was desirous of speaking, the most ordinary expressions 
failed him; and the slightest opposition disconcerted 
him. His intellectual eye could no longer endure the 
light, and a thick veil gradually obscured the clearness 
of his thought. He was so truly a man of sentiment, 
that he could accomplish only what he devoted himself 
to with his whole soul. It became thus scarcely possible 
for him to finish a single discourse like a sermon; 
and, one Sunday, he stuck suddenly fast in his preaching; 
his thoughts wandered ; he could not recover himself; 
and an incident, unheard of in a family of theologians, 
must happen to him. He had to descend from the 
pulpit without finishing his address. Since that time he 
had not felt the courage to speak a single word before 
the congregation, and all his father’s threats were 
insufiicient to drive him to it. 

Thus the investigating thinker was, at the same time, 
the pitiful, stuttering vulgarian; and when it became 
obvious, even to himself, how he had grown into the 
very thing which, in his father, he hated and despised — 
the morose, repulsive misanthrope ; the over-learned 
eccentric — then despair revived in his breast the recol- 
lection of the student as he ought to be ; that which he 
once was, and which was not yet wholly killed out in 
him. He sought society, and felt most at his ease in 
the most worthless, because he could speak out his 
contempt of it to its face. The cringing schoolmaster, 
the cunning, wanton Dora, and their dissolute set in the 
neighboring town, found him ready for every excess. 
But even here, it was want of knowledge of the world 


194 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


■which threatened to involve him, through his pleasures, 
in the destruction of his life’s career. 

On the night when Werner had unmasked him, on 
his return from the ball, the cunning of a girl who 
meant to have caught him for life, through the frivolity 
of an instant, had waked him from his intoxication. 
The spectacle of that fate to which submission had 
brought him, roused in him a thought of attempting, 
even now, rebellion. The resolution was no new one ; 
he had made it, perhaps, a hundred times before ; but 
now he saw himself compelled to carry it out, and to 
unchain himself from his family. The prize composition 
was the last cord on which he placed his hopes ; and 
the capricious, incomprehensible inflexibility of his father 
had reduced him to the frivolous spite of exposing this 
last one to risk. Yet he did not regret it, even now. 
He had nothing left to desire or expect in life. “What 
wilt thou still? what wilt thou still?” It was thus 
he was uttering that monologue ; repeating it again and 
again to the stream below, when, on a sudden, he heard 
th© answer from a soft, weak voice, close at his side : 
“ To our father.” 

He was startled, but, in his utter want of feeling, the 
shock did him good. If some spiritual agency had now 
lifted him up away from his despair, he could have 
believed in the supernatural, and have taken a fresh 
start, with new aliment for his thoughts. He heard, at 
the same time, a sigh ; and, as he turned round, perceived 
a bright form raising itself from the nearest grave- 
mound, while the same voice exclaimed : “ Alas ! alas ! 
Where am I ?” 

His sister could not have risen out of the grave. 


KEGENERATION. 


195 


Whence, then, did she come ? He had recognized Mar- 
tha ; he hastened to her and clasped her in his arms, 
in which she sank almost powerless. He felt shy before 
her, for he scarcely knew what to think of it all ; and 
whether he were not holding in his arms a being risen 
from the dead. 

Martha recovered her self-possession the moment she 
recognized her brother. He knew not how she had 
come there, nor she how either of them ; but when, after 
a time, he informed her of his liberation from imprison- 
ment, her memory seemed to revive. “Ah !” she said, 
“ how deliciously I felt just now ! I knew not where 
I was, nor what had happened to me.” 

“ What, then, has happened to you, my fine little 
sister ?” asked John, in his habitual bitter tone. “ Did 
you fall asleep at the rendezvous, because he didn’t 
come ? Yes, indeed ! he must be a fine sweetheart. I 
would like to have such a sweetheart too ; but I and 
love ! Ha, ha ! Who expects an honorable feeling any 
more out of my heart?” 

“John !” she began to say reproachfully, but check- 
ing herself, she grew gentle, and said : “ Ah ! yes — you 
know nothing of it all.” 

He began to listen earnestly and eagerly. “ Is my 
mother dead ?” flashed across him ; but then it was an 
old, overgrown grave on which he had found her. He 
urged -her to tell him what she meant ; but with down- 
fallen head, and leaning against him in tearless misery, 
she was speechless. At last, in interrupted pauses, in 
which she seemed to be gathering in her recollection, 
she revealed all to him. 

“ How was it, then? — Yes, he loved me— surely you 


196 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


knew that — he had promised to love me forever — father 
would not suffer it — he left me — I thought we should be 
true to each other till death — then — I heard he was 
going to be married. I could not believe it, and I went 
— went away from here to him — and I saw his bride. 
Oh ! she was beautiful — exquisitely beautiful — as his 
bride ought to be ! But then — ah ! yes — I only know 
that I came away. How I came here, I cannot recol- 
lect. But I will go to my father, he will love me still. 
Oh ! help me, John — help me to my father.” 

Her voice stifled her, and pain and rage were swelling 
in his own throat. There was feeling enough left in 
him to show him, in these few words, the whole fate of a 
maiden heart ; but he had not a word with which to 
meet her sufferings. Silent and motionless, he held her 
in his arms, with a feeling as though she were his own 
loved one. She thought he was condemning her, and 
entreated his gentleness. 

‘‘Dear brother,” she said, “lam not wicked. Oh ! if 
you could only have always looked into my heart. I 
was often so fond of you — so fond — I wept for you when 
our father rebuked you, and when I became unhappy, 
and he scolded me too, I learned then, for the first time, 
why he was so harsh with you. Oh ! do not reproach 
me too. Be my dear, dear brother !” 

“ Martha ! Martha !” broke out his over-full heart in 
passionate exclamation. He pressed her closely to his 
bosom, as though he had been her lover. “ Sister, dear 
sister ; yes, yes, I am your brother ! You love me; and 
I — I know not whether I have done so, but from this 
hour I will do it. I will make good what I have lost 
by delay. Oh! how heedlessly do human beings pass 


REGENERATION. 


197 


away their lives. We have stood side by side with each 
other so long, and yet all the while strangers ; have met 
each other every day with indifference, and find now 
that we have been sharing the same feelings, the same 
struggles. Was it necessary, then, that our whole exist- 
ence should be torn point from point, that we might 
learn to know each other ?” 

The two leaned upon each other in the most affection- 
ate sympathy. John began to feel that it was he who 
ought to ask pardon from her ; so many inattentions, 
so many harshnesses towards her, thronged upon his 
memory. “Yes, yes,” he said; “I know that people 
say I am a bad man ; but believe in me, and you shall 
yet feel that I have a heart that could love, but has 
grown flinty as the rock, because it had nothing to love. 
It is thawing out here, Martha ; here, on these tears 
which I shed for you ; and I shed them for myself as 
well. It is from you that I am learning to estimate 
myself; for you teach me that even a pure heart must 
break, under the bonds which sought to enslave us; 
and that even a pure heart must come to the same de- 
spair that has driven me to the border of life. Poor 
girl ! poor girl I Then your life, too, was one lingering 
pain, one struggling sickness ; your soul, too, has inhaled 
the sweet poison of freedom. No, no ! in spite of all, 
there is no poison in that. This holy thirst for an un- 
trammelled fortune, for more genial liberty, is the germ 
of the eternal ; the very stamp of our divine descent. 
Yes, sister — pure, glorious, strong-hearted girl that you 
are — it is you who restore me to myself. Your fate is 
the mirror in which I see myself, and recognize my 
better part. It was not wild impulse alone, it was an 
18 


198 


TUB ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


Idea; the same idea that animated you; the idea that 
I might become a being ■wholly noble, wholly free ; it 
was that to which I have fallen a sacrifice ; and yet not 
fallen — for I was only in danger of it. Now, I am my- 
self ; now, I have indeed the power to he all that, and 
the wish to remain it. Yes, sister ; to-day I shall begin 
my life. I shall begin it through you, and for you. 
My life has been, till now, like a worthless problem on 
a slate. I could not find the solution, and I wanted to 
rub out the whole child’s play in my anger ; but I feel 
now how deep that life is rooted into the soil of this 
world. I have a heart that I can cling to, a soul I can 
live, and toil, and struggle for. Oh ! I am the happiest 
man on the earth, for I can live again ; live^ for I have 
now a being I can love. And how wretched I was when 
I had no one in the whole world who loved me, and for 
whom I could live.” 

“Has no one loved you, brother?” said Martha. 
“ Oh ! you would never detect it. Well indeed have 
you been loved. Stay ! who told it to me ? I can’t 
remember ; my poor head is so weak ; I can scarcely 
think any more ; yes, I know : Lenette loves you, and 
it makes her unhappy. Ah ! little do you know what 
a girl’s suffering heart is.” 

“ Lenette has loved me ! Oh ! that I had dreamed of 
it ! I might yet have respected myself; but now — ” for 
he was thinking of the bonds that chained him to Dora, 
and he did not know that she had attained her aim as 
housekeeper to an old farmer — “ now, it is too late. I 
am lost for this world ; but there is a new one, where I 
can build up a life for you and for myself. Our father’s 
course has broken our hearts ; but a new life greets us 


REGENERATION. 


199 


in our love for each other. Come with me into that new 
world ; let us flee to America. Within its primeval 
forests, we will preserve our dreams of liberty, our faith 
in humanity. I will build you a hut there, toil for you 
day and night, and I shall lead a new existence ; for 
have I not a sister to care for? Doubt it not, my child, 
there is yet deliverance for us there ; the world has yet 
a corner for our home. I am not so poor as you think ; 
and I am only waiting for a letter, that must bring me 
the means to carry you to our new home.” 

“ There is a letter for you,” said Martha, timidly ; 

but pause, brother, pause. We will not leave this 
spot ; we will stay and seek our father, and entreat his 
afiection ; you will learn to know him as w’e have just 
now found out each other. He is a kind father ; he 
loves me, and he loves you too. You must stay, John. 
I will implore father for you ; he will forgive you and 
me too ; we will all remain together ; we will all be 
happy for the first time.” 

“ Hold ! hold ! not a word more of love with him ; 
not a word of reconciliation, of peace. I live here no 
longer. If I am to live at all, I must away from this 
soil ; away from father and from mother. There is only 
death for me here ; because where I might love, I must 
hate with all the energy of my nature. I must go forth, 
out into the wild forests. Did you say there was a let- 
ter ? Where is the letter ?” 

“ In the sitting-room with my father. Come in with 
me to him. Alas ! poor father. What have I done to 
him ? Come in with me to him, quickly, that I may 
relieve his sorrow, and tell him I will live : but he must 


200 THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 

love me ; love me only a little ; though indeed I deserve 
no love.” 

They went together towards the house ; he for his let- 
ter, she to her father. She was so weak that he was 
obliged to lead her ; and when they were near the house 
she asked to stop an instant, that she might rest ; she 
was so tired. She leaned upon him, pressed her hand 
against her heart, and said, in a self-reproachful tone : 
‘‘Ah! I feel so wretchedly here. I have treated my 
father so cruelly.” She tried once more to enter the 
house briskly, but after a few steps her heart beat so 
that she had to rest again. At last they stood close by 
the door, and could see that it was open. 

They went in. The sitting-room was also open, and 
no person within. Even their parent’s sleeping-room 
was not closed, and yet they could see nobody. The 
gloomy, deserted house, felt awful to them as the grave. 

John found his letter on his father’s secretary. 
Trembling with eager expectation, he lit the wax-light 
that stood, methodically as ever, on its bracket, under 
the looking-glass. The life-harvest of a scholar, the 
deliverance of two human beings, had been hanging on 
the postage of a letter ; and through the postage they 
were lost. It was the same letter that he had sent ; 
and it had been marked at the office as not received, 
and returned to its writer, because unpaid. 

John had lost the toil of half a life, and the hopes of 
a new one. Half an hour ago, and, in his philosophic 
apathy, this would not have affected him ; but now, 
when the wish of his heart was struggling against des- 
tiny, now he felt that something within him was crushed. 
He had scarcely wrested himself from a death-like 


REGENERATION. 


201 


lethargy into life, when he settled hack again into 
anguished despair. Clasping his hands before his face, 
he sank into the arm-chair, speechless. 

Martha was leaning against the door, with folded 
hands, her head sunk upon her boson like a bent lily. 
There was a knocking now at the street door, and she 
went to open it. It was not her father who entered, 
but Andrew. 

He was as jovial and familiar as ever. “ Is your 
father at home ?” he asked; and as Martha replied that 
he was not, he seemed quite satisfied, and said, jocosely, 
and without manifesting any spite at his faithless be- 
trothed : “ I know it all, and a pretty story it is. But 
never mind; leave it all to me, and all will yet go right. 
I knew how the afiair was to be undertaken, and I have 
carried it through. Only keep still, my dear little 
cousin. I take nothing unkindly. I am open to reason. 
The practical alone ! — no passion ! That is the true 
luxury.” 

In the course of his talk, it came out that he had 
been at the castle, and had an interview with the old 
baron, who was willing to give a handsome dowry for 
his fickle nephew’s deserted love, and that he was 
willing, for that, to marry her. But here he regarded 
the affair a little too practically, and blamed Martha for 
a fault of which she was incapable. “ I know every- 
thing,” said he, “ that has passed, but, as I said before, 
I listen to reason. I shall bear no ill-will for that. I 
shut my eyes willingly — the whole cursed story is got 
oyer — and we are a happy couple. The old man knows 
nothing of it yet, and I place it all to my own account.” 

“ I thank you,” was Martha’s reply. He urged her 
18 * 


202 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


for a distinct assent ; but, scarcely able to speak, her 
only answer was, ‘‘I thank you;” and long and passion- 
ately as he urged her, he got nothing from her but, “ I 
thank you.” When at last he began to understand her, 
though without completelj^ comprehending her, even 
then, he took his leave ; and swore that he would wait 
till she came to him, and begged him, on her knees, to 
save her honor ; or else he would inform her father how 
lost she was. He told her that he despised her, and 
that she should feel his vengeance and contempt. 

She returned to the sitting-room, and as John asked 
her who had been there, she replied: Andrew ; he was 
willing to marry me, and even now, too. Oh ! what 
must people think of me ! But I thank him. Now I 
know that it was not without ground that I was so proud. 
1 was, indeed, too good for him. If my father only 
forgives me, all will go well. You wdll not be passion- 
ate towards him, John, will you ?” 

Before her brother could reply to her entreaty, the 
parson himself came in, through the front door, which 
had been left open. 

‘‘ Who opened the door ?” was the question with 
which he entered the room, still dimly lighted by the 
wax candle. Then he perceived John ; while Martha, 
incaj)able of going to meet him, sat, unobserved, in a 
corner of the sofa. The breathless anxiety with which 
he had entered, was on the point of breaking out into 
his old anger ; but, as if his nature was crushed, and no 
longer had the energy to be true to itself, he composed 
himself ; and, with a protesting moveinent of the hands, 
said, less out of reproach at his son than as the expres- 
sion of his own grief : — 


REGENERATION. 


203 


“ So, the scamp is here again. I wonder whether he 
has lied himself safely out of it. Oh, you vindicated 
innocence !” 

“I have told no lie,” answered John, without stirring, 
except by turning his hack upon his father, with a defi- 
ance rendered still more insulting by his tranquillity. 
“ I have neither said that I edited the book, nor that I 
did not edit it. It was the province of the learned 
judges to inform themselves on that point, and to prove 
to me that I did it. They couldn’t do that, and so they 
sent me back to the delights of the paternal home.” 

“ Is that the fashion now ?” replied the old man. 
“ It used to be the custom among people who wished to 
be called honorable people, to confess freely what they 
had done ; and when a man would not confess, they used 
to squeeze him in the rack.” He seemed about to burst 
into a rage again ; but, once more protesting with his 
hands, he continued, in a more temperate manner : — 

“ But why do I go on talking ? He accuses me, to 
the last, of detraction, because I doubt his innocence. 
I will abandon him. What more can I try with him ! 
Thou, my Father in heaven, art witness that I have done 
everything to quench in him the sinful appetite of his 
blood ; that I have employed every means to keep him 
back from the wrong path : precept, admonition, threats, 
and punishment. I thought he must become what he 
ought to become. It is not my fault that he is what he 
is.” 

“ And yet it is your fault,” answered John, folding 
his arms, and leaning back more firmly in his chair ; 
and then he went on in the formal, professional tone, 
as if the question were of some matter in the world at 


204 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


large, but not bearing on himself ; and, with a serenity 
such as, perhaps, in its intrepidity, a follower of Spinoza 
alone could be capable: ‘‘and yet it is your fault! One 
can restrain a traveller from one wrong path, and yet 
expose him to go wrong on all the rest ; because one 
has not shown him the right path. One can expend all 
these means of education on a soul — precept, punish- 
ment, restraint — and expend them in vain : because he 
has forgotten the simplest of all — love. Thus, you 
have always only held me back ; you have guided me to 
nothing. You, who have hindered me in everything, 
have not advanced me the single half florin to pay the 
postage. Instead of exercising my limbs, you have 
weakened them ; instead of teaching me to see, to dis- 
tinguish, to decide, you have covered up my mental 
eyes ; and when I reeled into the world out of your 
leading-strings, I had to tear away the bandage, and 
the beams of the eternal sun met me with a mortal pain. 
Blinded by them, I pressed further and further out into 
the boundless desert, till, gone all astray, and hunted 
down, I reach the nothing ; knowing nothing in myself, 
and nothing out of myself ; no joy, no love, only hatred 
— hatred against the precepts that drove me to doubt ; 
hate against the church that condemned my doubts ; 
hate against all mankind, who were happier than I, and 
knew no doubts ; hate against myself, that I knew 
nothing but to hate. Me voila. That is what I am, with- 
out any bragging. , It is this; and one can see from this 
counterfeit of myself that I am no heedless, frivolous 
creature, no mad rioter ; but a struggling man, who 
knew what he longed for, and searched for what he 
knew ; but who must be what he is, under the pressure 


REGENERATION. 


205 


of confinement and delusion — a sentimental rascal ; a 
poor simpleton. It is this that is your master-work, most 
pious theologian ; a being to -whom nothing but mere 
existence remains.” 

“ Scoundrel ! scoundrel !” gnashed out the parson ; but 
he broke down in a sigh. “ Father ! Father ! is this the 
reward of my distress, of my anxiety, which never 
allowed my heart' one single free beat ? What is there 
still for me to do ? Oh ! God of heaven, enlighten me. 
It cannot be thy will, that this awful fate be inevitable. 
And you ! what can I do for you ? I have nothing but 
my curse. Will my curse then help you?” 

“Father, father, for heaven’s sake cease!” screamed 
Martha ; and her father answered her with a half puz- 
zled smile : “ Ah I you, too, here I Am I guilty of your 
shame, too, lost girl ? Oh 1 God, have pity on me 1” 

“Yes, yes; you have her too on your conscience,” 
continued John, now clenching his hands before his face, 
and starting into a passion at the thought of his sister, 
and despair at his inability to help her. “ She is no 
debased girl ; but my sister — the sister of my fate, and 
the daughter of a crazy father. Oh I I can forgive you 
that you have hurled me to the earth ; for perhaps I am 
by nature wild ; perhaps I have a gloomy, defiant heart ; 
but that you have snapped this flower, this lovely flower 
— that shall fall on your heart. Instead of cherishing 
her with sunshine and love, you have deprived her heart 
of its nutriment, shut it up in chilly darkness, and when 
the first ray of the heavenly light of love streamed on 
it, what else could she do, but consume away in her 
transport? Who can save you now ? Oh! Martha, Mar- 
tha, who can save you!” 


, 206 THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 

‘‘Peace, peace, brother!” exclaimed Martha through 
her tears. “ Father does not mean so cruelly ; he is 
not so wicked 1” 

“ Not so wicked 1 not so wicked ! Is that my whole 
reward ? and from you too ? My children ! my chil- 
dren I No, no ; I will not curse you. I will control 

myself, txod 1 God! where is there deliverance ?” 

“ Nowhere ! Nowhere ! all reconciliation is but a 
show, a delusion. We are condemned to hate,” cried 
John, with scorn, and at the same time with the calm- 
ness of wanton insolence ; and continued with regard- 
less barbarity: — 

“ And, now, behave yourself, old man. Let it sink 
again deep into your heart ; feel the pain again ; learn 
for once to feel that you are not infallible. There is no 
more comfort for you. You will never comprehend what 
it is for a full, free human heart to perish ; for where 
God has given men a heart, he has laid a stone in you. 
Yes, tear your hair ; I enjoy your suffering ; and when 
I have emptied my heart, full of hate and misery, I will 
go to the cross by the stream, and betake myself to my 
grave ; for the feeling of vengeance against my own 
father, is the only living feeling I have. That must be 
my end, but it must also be the end of such a monster 
as you. And now I will give you this godless legacy, 
in return for your Christian blessing, which has fulfilled 
itself in me. The God in whom you believe, gave you 
a wife — he gave you children ; and you must answer to 
him for the happiness and weal of their souls. And can 
we thank you for one free hour, for one wise precept ? 
What has become of the hearts that were intrusted to 
you ? Mine is benumbed ; that one is broken ; and your 


REGENERATION. 


207 


wife’s ? Look, here is the curse with which I send you 
out of life. Even your wife, too, must and will die of a 
broken heart. You shall have her death, too, upon your 
conscience. The world will point its finger at you, and 
say : ‘ See, that is the priest who thought himself a God, 
and brought his wife and children to their graves through 
misery and his pride.’ ” 

‘‘ That, to me ! Madman !” The father sprang up 
with a cry of pain and rage, that showed how mortally 
he was wounded. ‘‘ That to me ? Your mother ? Don’t 
you know that she is now lying on the bed of death ? 
It was she, this abandoned daughter, who threw her 
there. And now this to me ! Oh ! excellent fruit of my 
life ! oh ! worthy pair ! Shall I destroy the fruit; or the 
stock, for bearing such fruit ? Murder, murder is ting- 
ling at my fingers — murder to you or to myself. Where 
am I ? It is madness that is seizing me. The threads 
of life, which reason held together, are bursting apart. 
I can live no longer. It is hurrying me off to the cross 
by the stream. I, I am the victim. The principles of 
my life are crashing together. Help, help, sexton ! help, 
hold me ! hold me ! Not you, you abandoned children 
— you have me, too, upon your conscience.” 

A shrill cry of pain restored him to reason, and he 
saw his daughter, covered with blood, sink in her bro- 
ther’s arms. All his human emotions, all his fatherly 
love returned. He hastened to her, and saw Mar- 
tha fallen down from the bursting of a bloodvessel ; 
senseless, and straining back with her hands the con- 
vulsions of her heart. 

They rested her in the easy-chair, and she waked in a 


208 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


quarter of an hour from her stupefaction ; hut could not 
speak a word. John had opened her bodice to give her 
relief, and her first movement was to press her hand- 
kerchief close to her bosom. She sat thus the whole 
night speechless, and watching her father and brother, 
with her spiritual, widely-opened eyes. Both sat silent 
beside her. In their care for this broken heart, the two 
severed ones were reunited. 


PEACE. 


209 


CHAPTER XI. 

PEACE. 

The physician, who came in the morning, found Mar- 
tha in the same condition. As he had already heard of 
her father’s opposition to her love, it was easy to make 
him comprehend the incidents of the last few days. He 
made an examination of her chest, and sounded it ; and 
Martha, who could only answer his questions by a 
movement of the head, smiled painfully on him and on 
her father, as he gave her the most encouraging hopes. 

“ The little heart is guilty of this,” said the well-bred 
young man, who had the truest delicacy of feeling 
towards such a patient. “ It comes from the mind, and 
we must keep ourselves perfectly quiet, and free from 
all excitement, pleasant or unpleasant. This amiable 
young lady has too much feeling, too much heart, and 
too happy a temperament. Yes, yes ; I see you smile ; 
you won’t agree to that. The heart must even be an 
unhappy one. I dare say you consider yourself naturally 
melancholy. But I ought to know about that, and 
indeed it is not so. Here is the genuine sanguine tem- 
perament of youth, which lives too quickly, and sparkles 
too much ; and the prudent organization won’t endure 
this, and draws the heart back, after its excitement, into 
exhaustion. Then one becomes melancholy. Isn’t it 
19 


210 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


SO ? It’s strange, isn’t it, how much such a doctor as I 
am can spy out in a human being ? But have no fears 
of me ; for if I know where the trouble comes from, I 
shall know how to cure it. The pulse is quite tranquil 
now, only it must continue so. We must keep ourselves 
comfortable and cheerful ; and, as the sun is quite high 
enough, we will carry the arm-chair out under the lilacs, 
and I’ll send Miss Lenette here to keep you company ; 
and then, the moment my patient gets better, she must 
go and stay with her friend. The atmosphere is purer 
at the Banger’s, than it is here, between these thick, 
stone arches. After that there will be no need of nurs- 
ing, but only of society and amusement.” 

The physician spoke in a different tone when he had 
left the sick girl, and stood down stairs with Wendelin 
and John. “ Gentlemen,” said he, “life and death are 
balancing on a needle’s point. Bemedy there is none. 
I can only prescribe something sedative, but a single 
breath may destroy all. It is the singular case of a 
broken heart, in the literal meaning of the words. A 
great sensibility of the heart exists during the different 
moods of feeling, and this sensibility produces an en- 
largement, which goes on increasing, until some ex- 
tremely powerful agitation finally takes place, when the 
structure of the chest, allowing no further expansion, a 
rupture of the sides of the heart results. My art is at 
an end here, for it is the soul that asks the cure. If 
this shock passes over without being fatal, it will then 
be your part to give the mental life of your child a new 
direction. Is it not possible to give your consent to 
this fatal alliance ? At any rate, fjie patient must 
leave this house, where everything recalls some sorrow- 


PEACE. 


211 


ful incident ; and as soon as possible. She must then 
exercise moderately, and divert herself with cheerful 
reading, and quiet company ; and I hope that in this 
way, body and soul may recover once more, to a mod- 
erate degree of strength. But avoid every emotion 
now. The smallest agitation of fright or joy will be 
her death.” 

Father and son continued to watch over her, in a 
common sorrow and anxiety. The mother, who had 
been taken ill at the Ranger’s, while searching for 
Martha on that eventful night, declaring she should 
certainly die, roused herself at the news of her daughter’s 
calamity. She got up from her bed, dragged herself to 
the parsonage ; and the dear woman, now that she could 
be nurse again, was once more all life and activity. 

Martha’s condition seemed to alter but little during 
the whole day. Her breathing, however, grew a little 
more feeble, and a touching smile settled on her features. 

A very different scene has meanwhile been enacting 
at the wedding castle which Martha had left ; and one 
that was destined to give a turn to the crisis of this 
case. 

The wedding ceremony was over. After the marriage, 
they all rode to the chase, and returned, afterwards, to 
a cheerful supper on the castle balcony, under the starry 
sky, which they prolonged late into the night. Uncle 
Aurelian had at last retired, and Werner was alone with 
his bride. 

He was reclining at her feet. She was fond and en- 
chanting, and he had forgotten every suspicion. He 
kissed her hand ; and his eye was attracted by a glim- 
mer, in which he seemed to detect the false lustre of a 


212 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


truthless heart. He again took the hand on which he 
had observed it, and recognized a wreath of brilliants, 
which encircled a dark stone. Gently but powerfully 
he drew the ring from her finger. She was violently 
agitated. He walked toward the lamp, which still 
glimmered feebly, hut the form of the stone was all he 
could distinguish; he could not see its color. He threw 
himself into a chair, drew back the window-curtains, and 
riveted his eye upon the ring till morning dawned. In 
the first ray of the sun the stone gleamed out — an eme- 
rald, surrounded by diamonds. 

Werner threw the ring upon the marble table, and 
stepped out of the room, with these words : I leave 
you the legacy of Prince Waldemar.” 

He walked out of the castle into the early morning 
fog, threw himself upon the ground in the forest, and 
fought a desperate conflict with himself, all day. As 
the sun was setting, he stood in front of the parsonage. 
He entered the hall, the sitting-room ; hut he could find 
nobody; till, on looking through the window, he descried 
the family in the garden. He saw Martha, pale as a 
corpse, in the arm-chair, under the lilacs ; he rushed out, 
threw himself at her feet, and asked hurriedly : “ Are 
you ill? Oh ! for heaven’s sake let me not he the guilty 
cause. Oh, cast me not from you. Return me not like 
for like. I have behaved horribly to you, but I was 
horribly deceived. I will yet make all right. Only 
forgive me, Martha ! my own dear Martha !” 

Wendelin and John began to breathe again, for they 
saw deliverance at hand. Lenette tried to hold the im- 
petuous intruder back, that she might keep all excite- 
ment at a distance ; but Martha turned her head toward 


PEACE. 


213 


him, and smiled on him with a look of sadness, but 
of the richest, deepest love. She then pressed her 
heart, and, moving with difficulty, drew out of her 
bodice the withered myrtle-wreath, and extended it to 
her lover. The tint of life and joy had given a glow to 
her cheeks ; her breast heaved with a freer breathing ; 
she seemed to be restraining herself, and trying to keep 
dowm all excitement ; and, as she smoothed her white 
handkerchief comfortably round her neck, she pointed 
to the corner, in which was Werner’s initial ; and then, 
turning round, leaned up in one corner of the chair. 
Once again she plucked at her dress, and then subsided 
into a tranquil sleep. 

She did not wake the whole evening, not even when 
they carried her into the house in the chair. All sought 
some place of rest, on the sofa or on a chair, but with- 
out taking off their clothes. Werner sat at her feet, 
Lenette by her side. About midnight, Lenette roused 
him, apparently in anxiety. She wanted him to feel 
Martha’s pulse. He took her hand gently, so as not to 
wake her ; it was cold ; he could not find the pulse. He 
grew uneasy, and roused the rest; but neither pulse, 
nor beating of the heart was perceptible. Her body 
grew colder and colder, and when the physician at last 
came, he announced to them the fact: ‘‘ She has gone 
to her rest ; and it was only thus that she could find 
repose. With beings so delicately constituted, all joy 
is like all suffering; the whole life is one long illness ; 
but it is a beautiful, an enviable illness. One might say 
of such beings, that they die by force of their character. 
It is their character which they live, but in their very 
life they perish.” 


19 * 


214 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


‘‘There are still hearts, even in our own day,” said 
John ; “ and one detects them, too, only by their 
breaking.” 

One more blow followed Martha’s death, and then the 
sky over the parson’s family cleared away. This last 
blow struck the parson. On the Sunday succeeding his 
child’s burial, he was beginning to preach on original 
sin, and the curse of worldliness, and was uttering those 
words of Scripture, “ The inclination of man’s heart 
is evil from his youth up,” when his voice suddenly 
stopped. An apoplectic stroke had paralyzed his 
tongue. In a fortnight his malady was cured, but he 
never completely recovered the control of his speech ; 
and it remained forever impossible to re-enter the pul- 
pit. One day a letter came to the parsonage, in which 
the Minister of Public Instruction granted Parson Wen- 
delin the discharge he had solicited, deeply as it grieved 
him that the church should lose so faithful and zealous 
a servant. The old man’s will, too, was broken with the 
injury to his speech; and he no longer exercised autho- 
rity over any one. 

John and Lenette, whose hands had been joined 
together by Martha, a short time before her death, 
exchanged their, vows for life. The sister had taught 
him to feel what the bride might be to him. A new 
nature had been summoned into being by the meeting 
on that fatal night. His passionate character, freed 
now from all impure sediment, turned to struggle after 
a single determinate object for his life. The winter was 
passed in eager industry over his books, and by the 
time his father was obliged to vacate the parsonage, he 
had obtained a situation as tutor, in a neighboring uni- 


PEACE. 


215 


versity. The efforts of Baron von Bernthal, with whom 
he had entered into relations of the most genuine and 
manly friendship, had procured him those connections 
which a^-e always necessary to make merit available. 
His scientific capacity had already gained him a reputa- 
tion by no means insignificant. It did him no great 
damage among the German professors that he was una- 
ble to master language with facility and elegance ; and 
in return, that voice which sounded from his inward 
depths ; that laborious and significant delivery — which 
was never smooth, because he was always laboring to find 
a new word for every new thought — secured the sym- 
pathy, if not of the superficial student, at any rate of 
the assiduous and persevering. A successful career is 
evidently before him, for he belongs to that small num- 
ber of learned men, who have not so much studied as 
felt and thought themselves out. 

Still another change took place in him ; and he noticed 
it very strikingly, in the contrast presented by an alter- 
ation of an opposite character, which showed itself in 
the baron, when, nearly two years after, he visited John 
in his new home. Werner, once the decided aristocrat, 
had entered the service of his country, and come into 
close contact with political life. His nobility, which did 
not lie merely in his title, made everything like a false- 
hood odious to him ; and the chivalrous feeling he had 
preserved as an officer of the government, drove him 
into opposition to everything that seemed injurious to 
the cause of truth and right. John, on the contrary, 
felt himself less prompted, in his new situation in life, to 
step forth, the liberator, the enlightener, the deliverer 
of the world ; but was more conscious of an impulse to 


216 


THE ROSE OF THE PARSONAGE. 


investigate, and disclose, the moral elements of human 
life, which bind it together and set it its limits. Yet 
in this very difference of their paths of feeling, the two 
friends found the more frequently they intei^changed 
their ideas, that a common aim united them ; and they 
ever parted from each other with a mutually elevated 
esteem, and a hope to meet still at the common terminus 
of their career. 

The old parson took no pleasure in this new tendency 
of his son, for he understood his present state as little 
as he had his former one. His belief in destiny seemed 
no longer to occupy him ; perhaps he saw it fulfilled in 
the death of his child. A poor, weak, broken old man, 
he had gone, with his wife, to live at the Ranger’s, and 
passed his days there in tending his flowers ; the pret- 
tiest of which he planted on Martha’s grave. He was 
still as gloomy as ever, and took no share in the social- 
ity of the house ; but a birthday never came round in 
the family, when he did not make his present of a bunch 
of flowers, or a flower in a pot. 

The young physician had interested himself in this 
family with a real sympathy ; and maintained that he 
could cure the old man of his gloom and dejection. He 
recommended the Carlsbad springs, hut they did not 
succeed ; and if the fate of his family no longer troubled 
the poor old parson, apprehension over his flowers took 
its place. Many a sleepless night would he pass after 
he had sown his seeds, in anxiety whether they would 
come up ; and after they were above ground, he was 
always concerned lest nettles should show themselves, 
instead of larkspurs. 

His wife was able to cheer him a little, for she felt so 


PEACE. 


217 


full of happiness ; and was beginning now at last to 
expand into life. Her homesickness was gone, her 
unhappiness had ceased, since it had been in her power 
to indulge, without stint, her single passion for chatter- 
ing ; as she did now with these two old gossips at the 
Ranger’s. And what rich material for weighty discourse 
and conference was provided, when Lenette was prepar- 
ing her establishment ; and then when she went as the 
young professor’s wife into the city ; and then again, 
when her letters came to her old home. When spring 
came round, too, the parson’s wife and grandpapa Ran- 
ger had to make a visit to their children, and to hold a 
little girl over the font ; and when they asked its name, 
there was no controversy now among the god-parents, 
for what could it be, but Martha ? 

Thus the name of that being so lovely, and so ill- 
fated, survived in the family ; and even her personal 
appearance did not fall into forgetfulness. The blessed 
Martha shone down from heaven upon the little Martha, 
like a guardian angel, and a bright example ; and per- 
haps the family is never collected in festivity, that they 
do not, amid their enjoyment, think over her who is 
gone. At such times, every one has some trait of her 
loveliness to recount ; and no matter how often it is told, 
it is always heard with the same deep affection, and at 
every fresh occasion, some new one emerges from their 
recollection. 

When the Baron von Bernthal, who has become 
almost an eccentric ; who lives wholly in his employ- 
ment, and in the pursuits of science, and who knows 
no recreation except an annual journey to the Rhine ; 


218 


THE ROSE OP THE PARSONAGE. 


when he has, on a visit of this sort, poured out his heart 
before Lenette, what new and captivating stores she 
has to display, in his disclosures to her of his intimate 
relation with her friend. 

It is these recollections, still living in the family, that 
the author of this tale has gathered together. May this 
little book be to those who knew its heroine, a token of 
love ; and to those who would gladly have known her, 
a type of that instruction which a noble mind can derive 
from a character such as hers. 

A place must be found here in its conclusion, for a 
letter written by John to Baron Werner ; which shows 
how blessings sprang up from their reconciliation over 
Martha’s grave. “What I once heard from you,” it 
said, “ is true. The world does always reflect back 
upon us the mirrored image of ourselves ; and as we 
wish it to appear, so must we ofier ourselves. I have 
experienced wonderfully, even in myself, how the soul is 
capable, by its own internal energy, of erecting a new 
and glorious creation, out of a world that seems crumb- 
ling in ruin : not, it is true, in the paroxysm of passion, 
nor by the elasticity of a genial fancy ; but by laborious, 
persistent toil — toil that ploughs up again the long 
desolate field for new crops. The impulse of that divine 
fulness of creation, which shows itself inexhaustibly in 
ethical as in planetary life, will involuntarily come to 
the aid of every being who holds fast to his courage. 
Life in the intellectual world always regenerates itself, 
wherever space and freedom for its growth are allowed it ; 
and if, at times, all life seems chilling into an icy numb- 
ness, and every organization appears crumbling into 


PEACE. 


219 


decay, there Tvill come times, in turn, when the sun- 
light of love w^akes up the old life, and with the old, a 
new and richer one. 

“ No winter has ever settled on the earth, that spring 
has not at last overcome.” 


THE END. 


o 







9-% * 


.a.o^v 3 1 







^PAn*r) ^-rcr. V-\xr <rv,i:i .^i 


-tiJ/S: $. 

4 t yfl) 4 ;}l# 


• 


. >i 


t)t<> 


r % 


i 

* ^ 




•• j 




! i • - ' * 


• « 
V 


** 


\ 


■:t 


. 1 * . . 


» » 


0. 






•. » 


!?£■. . ' 


• t*» 


'V^ V' 


Vk* V' ‘>‘'<n 

^ v't;-' Ji ••’^^, 

V . ^ 




« ^ r.‘ / '•> 'Cf ' " • 






■’ * - Wij:tnv 't '"i -.• ^ ■ *’^ 




-V 


- va- 

;? • 


• » 

.c 


i} 


»> 




^ ' 

» * 


•. >u 


4iri 


( 


•• • 


‘ ^ 


•t* 


.a ,'. j 


• • t ^ 




► 


I 



1 


I* 


I 

» 




1 

> 










» ' 

I 


I • 

» 1 . 




s ^ * * 

vV.,^.. 

“ V • 



i 


IJJL T )7 


,, * 
« 

t • 


.4 

’ • * 



I 


• ■ I 

' V 
t • 



/' I 


» ■ \v - • **5 
» < ( » ^ 






1 . 


« 


• » 

\ 


w* 


* 



«l 


4 



» 


1 


/ • • 

• • 

. •/ 

• i 


\ 









r : • 





»V'«' 



/•;■> V V:5 ™ a:., ; . 

V 'A*"-V '■' -‘-'i^'' '«> '/ » • ■' '.''■ vV^- 1' 

•Jj -. .-. V--:^ '-.?^- -*fcr' r 

-^^■■V,^■•'•-V '.^ 1 ^ 

’ * - 1 / '‘■'^' ’*' ' '• ** - T[ 


■■**'^' ',> > <• V . • -• . 


^ I 


^ / 


/r--> 

'rj -r . ' 


^ 5 , 


'* .. "vf . '-•• 


... 'V.,: ■ <vj 4 " .^v:',’ .; 

■/••->,.' i. ,••• -n •■ , -' 


■ '■*-•:■, ’v 




•/ 


•-*V * ' 

■ - 

. fr ' ^ 


*• 

f * • , . 

w-v ■ 

• > " * • 

■ < ^-v ■ 


■ •. ’M v. 


r » 


- V .(.•'.'* 

....A •' 




.» 


» 'f 




. ! 'J •'•*-, •*.! 


, ^ 


> •> • 


i X 
« 


. A' .*•' 


I. *• ’ O' ^ 7 . ‘ • V « .v% 


> — V *H‘y. 

. .V ' •• 


-it-, r .jt’ 



*<v 


Ml 


V . ‘ '■ ■ ^ ; 

jfl 




*. ' ;■.*•. '.y X 

* * " . '.I 


.. t-k’. 

► '- •*;. ’‘’Tr; 

■ :,\ • ' *r^ — K .. •' 

. \ , 4 * ., 

• n. . - . . k>. 


' ■ ’• \A fi' - V' •■'..v *• -' i-‘- 

, I • .'"T -i • • ^ 

, • • J . >, -•* •• ;•'•.- . 1 • :e I 

^ ** ;•" • ■ V . ' ■ 'VT..^ 

» » .♦ • ' , t ' -, ,.*•*.• 1 ~ 





• -f^.- 

'I - ' • ' — ^ *• 

i > ’• . . M'- 'dbi . , 

•• ; ■';,W':.;ii^ 

V ^ ^ 


p 9 m 4 V t A -M** * ' I « ... 



^ - 



J t • ■ .’^ 4 -^w. * ft V' 






■A-::-/),' 



/ . ^ 


4^ . 

SB 

• 

*■? 

:yi 

yy 

yyj 


'r l ■ ' •■■ :— - • 


* t\ V*v Tj 

■i. ft vi'A?,! 

V-' '- ^ ^ -V ,? 


, » • 

/ i 



•• ' , 

/♦ 


- 


« 

\ ■. e 


• T 

■ . . V * -Vf^ 

y- . ..■•• ', •'■'m-'a i-.,, ., _v “^ v 

A.. '*■< r 

.>■■. >■ .‘S .ji-,,** •;»«'. V 


. i ■ ’. - • ^ 

. .i * 

• •. . . I#’ 


• i. 


M '•' * 

* >11 


3 . 

< f 


/ V‘ # 


u 

w* 


• •‘W 


i'. 

8^::'’.':.--'-. ,-V'- 

■■'■/■■ . y • ^... .*•■.. • ■ r 

Wj ■v^;.. ' I ■.\y-y.n ■ ' . • -Vi^-- 





• M 



£^.rf 



.Si 


> 


' "<• 

< •* ■ 


■y ' ■■ . 


i4j,r ■^•' ■ '- 


3* • 4lS» i '‘V’tO. - ■;-/'* .., / ,1^ '■ C'- 

•■' •-*< , < *.^j . -s •• v-V- > 




Kr:. .'■■• f 




'i • 


y. 





'* ti- 



>1 '• V, 

J Vr_ VW., 


‘ r. '' 


kiiW#: 



nr-V ' '’-■*'}■«■> -A,;*/ 






•• ' >..y ' ' 

If MduRwIlHii^lHli 'tS- m 


(k • 


• Li* • 




s . 

' C'! 


:• ' v; ' !(/ i 

.■,<• 'AV' .i> 

• T .'-v- t (•''i'-d 
• I j '-'T'S 





1 

jm 

1 






I 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


